


I Will Hear You Call

by Lapin



Series: What If I'm Far From Home? [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2019-09-20 17:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17027058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapin/pseuds/Lapin
Summary: Red doesn't usually say much.With friends like Vasquez and Faraday, that doesn't matter. They talk enough for themselves and him. Talk enough for Billy, too, when it comes down to it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Northisnotup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northisnotup/gifts).



> This is Pariah's and North's fault.

Red doesn't usually say much.

With friends like Vasquez and Faraday, that doesn't matter. They talk enough for themselves and him. Talk enough for Billy, too, when it comes down to it.

“I'm just saying -” Faraday is always _just saying_. He's always fucking talking, but usually Red can drown it out. Not tonight. Tonight, Faraday is talking about Red, and if he ignores him, he's going to pay for it later. “When's the last time you went out? 'Cause here's what I'm thinking, and Vasquez agrees!”

Red looks at Vasquez. He shrugs.

“Ever since Billy found Goody and they fell in sickening love -,” that was one way of putting that frankly codependent disaster that they called a relationship, “- he has been infinitely more pleasant. I mean, Vasquez can back me up on this, yesterday, just yesterday, I tripped over his drum kit and he didn't even hit me!”

“He threw a drumstick at you,” Red points out, because he did. It had hit him too. It'd been funny.

“But he didn't actually hit me!”

“Make your point.”

Vasquez steps in. “Just saying, _mijo_ , maybe if you went out, got yourself some, you might be in a good mood, for once. Or at least a better one.”

“Mind your own business.” This isn't the first time they've had this conversation. It happens whenever they decide Red's being more of an asshole than usual. Problem is, he'd be less of an asshole if these two would stop getting on his fucking nerves, like they are right now.

They've been getting on his nerves more than usual the past couple of days, their usual bullshit amped up to eleven for whatever fucking reason.

Fuck, Red needed a better day job so he could move the fuck out. He used to go sleep on Billy's couch when shit was getting like this, but now Goody's there all the damn time, and he talks at Red too much.

He's not having this conversation, so he gets up and goes outside onto the patio to light a cigarette. He only gets a minute before Vasquez follows him out, shutting the door. He lights a cigarillo, the smell strong enough Red backs away from him.

“Ain't just us, _mijo_ ,” he says. “Jack's worried about you.”

“Why're you and Dad talking about me?”

“'Cause he wants you to find yourself a good boy, and adopt him some grandbabies.” Red shrugs. “And he's thinking maybe you ain't talking about some shit you need to be talking about. He knows you ain't going to that therapy like you're supposed to be.” When Red works out just why his dad would have that information, he flips Vasquez off. “Don't push me, _mijo_. I only think that shit is cute for a minute.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Kick your ass like I did when we were kids,” Vasquez warns. “Jack'll let me if I tell him you deserved it.”

Red's not worried. “You weren't a Marine. I was. Try it.”

“Exactly. You were a Marine, which is why you are supposed to be going to that therapy. And you're not supposed to be isolating yourself, which is what you've been doing. You going to end up in that bad place you were in again -”

“Fuck off,” Red warns him. They don't talk about that shit. They _never_ talk about that shit. It was one accident, one time, and he’s watched his meds carefully ever since.

Vasquez takes a hit, and shakes his head. “You want to end up back in the hospital? Because if you do, that might kill Jack. I thought he was going to have a stroke, Red! I'm not being funny, _mijo_ , and I wasn't doing much better.”

He's not wrong. His dad had looked half-dead by the time Red had come down from the medication they'd pumped him full of. That had made Red feel worse than anything. When Jack had realized that Red was awake, he'd started crying. _That_ had been the worst of it. The last time he'd seen Jack cry was when Red was eleven, still a foster kid, and the social worker had taken him from Jack because of some stupid fight at school.

“If I go back to therapy, will you drop this shit?”

“No,” he says. “Josh is just trying to help too, you know. Now, we're used to you and your shit, but this ain't good for you. We're just trying to be there for you.” He puts the cigarillo out and puts his hand on Red's shoulder. “You can talk to me, _hermanito_ , you know?”

Red's not really in the mood to be touched,, but he doesn't push Vasquez off, just nods.

“Alright,” Vasquez says, squeezing his shoulder. “Look, see, me and Josh, we know some boys that you might like. How about next time we run into them, you actually talk to one? Do it for me? Do it for _papí's_ peace of mind?”

It's the last thing Red wants to do. He can barely make himself talk around the band, and they do most of the talking for him anyway.

But he knows Vasquez isn't lying, not about his dad. Red can ignore everyone else's bullshit just fine, but not Jack.

He goes to therapy on Thursday.

“Red,” the therapist greets, looking up. “Aren't you a pleasant surprise?”

He's probably the only person who can say that with a straight face, except Jack. He might even mean it. Rodriguez is an unnaturally nice man, even when the group therapies are going especially bad.

Red sits down between two vaguely familiar faces that he doesn't hate, and kicks his legs out, crossing his arms over his chest. He's not required to talk unless he wants to, and he doesn't really plan on it today. He told Vasquez he would go, not that he would participate.

He hates this, really. Hates listening to everyone talk about all the bad shit going on in their heads. He feels like it sticks to him, seeps in and adds to his own bad shit, weighs him down even more.

“- can't even talk to my wife about it,” the guy beside him is saying. “I love her, but I don't even want to be around her anymore. Been staying at Ali's place..” The guy indicates the other guy who must be Ali. “Feels like if I talk to her, if I let myself get comfortable, I'm going to snap again. That I'll _hurt_ her.”

Red can't tune him out, no matter how hard he tries, so gets up, pulling his cigarettes out of his back pocket and heading for the doors.

“Red?” Rodriguez calls after him, but he keeps walking. He can't stay. He can't listen. Not to that guy. Maybe if Red smokes a cigarette, the guy will finish up and Red can go back in.

The guy has shut the fuck up once Red is done. Someone else is talking about losing their leg. Red can ignore that.

When everyone is filtering out, Rodriguez stops him.

“I just want to be sure you know my door is still open, if you ever want to talk privately.”

Red nods.

“Here,” he pushes his card into Red's hand. “Seriously, Red. Stop by. Talk. Doesn't even have to be about anything in particular, if you're still not ready.” Red's jaw tightens. It must be obvious, because Rodriguez sighs. “You're living with your former foster brother, still, right?”

“And the white boy he found in the trash.” If he's being fair, it was Vasquez and Faraday's apartment before Red moved in, after his discharge. He'd lived with his dad for a bit after, but much as he hated people, small town life had been even worse. Vasquez had a spare room since their last roommate had jumped ship. It had made sense.

Looking back, he should have asked a bit more about why the third roommate had left like he did.

“Still playing with them?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, if you're not ready to talk to me, maybe try talking to him. You grew up with him, right?”

“Sort of.”

Vasquez had been fifteen when Red got placed with him and Jack, back when Red was almost eleven. He'd hung around after he aged out, had always looked out for Red, always made sure Red he could count on him. He'd started calling Red _hermanito_ and _mijo_ after about a week, walking him to the elementary school because, as he'd explained to Jack, it was not cool to get escorted by his foster father.

Not that it had ever stopped Jack from participating in every other aspect of school. Red had gotten used to foster parents who didn't give a shit about him, as long as he didn't bother them. The first time he'd come home pissed off, he'd told Vasquez why, and Vasquez had made him tell Jack.

_“Mrs. Jessup said I should pick out an American name, instead of Red Harvest.”_

Jack was a white man, and kind of awkward about shit with Vasquez and even Red. He'd expected Jack to agree, like all the white foster parents before him.

Instead, Jack had stormed down to the school the next damn morning and screamed at everyone from the teacher in question, to the principal, and all the way to the superintendent. Red had gotten transferred to another class. His name had stayed Red Harvest.

Here and now, Rodriguez says, “Red, you've got to talk to someone eventually. Keeping it all inside, it's like poison, and eventually, it's going to get you. Just like those cigarettes.” Red shrugs again, and Rodriguez backs off. “Hope to see you next week, Red.”

Not like he has a choice, not if his dad was worried enough he was gossiping with Vasquez about him.

Vasquez texts him, tells him they're at Billy and Goody's, and to meet them there, so he drives over, already hearing Faraday bitching about having to take the bus. Like it's Red's fault Faraday and Vasquez can't get their shit together enough to buy their own damn cars.

He parks in the spot with the faded paint marking Billy and Goody's apartment, then gets out and lights a cigarette as he takes a seat on the steps. He needs a minute to brace himself is all. Too many people in one day tends to grate on his nerves.

A car pulls up, black Jetta, not factory anymore, to judge from the sound of the engine. Red eyes it, curious. It looks like someone is halfway done getting it up to street, but one of the sideview mirrors is blue instead of black, and the tires are half-bald. Plus, the guy who gets out sure as fuck isn't doing any racing. Red would put money on it.

White boy, not bad-looking. Looks like the kind of idiot that gets mugged on the right side of town, gets laughed at on the wrong one. He opens the backseat door and gets out a box, and...fuck, some genuine Martha Stewart looking bowl with a matching cover. Red stands up, stretching out his bad leg and watching while the moron tries to balance the bowl, the box, and his fucking keys.

He fails, and chooses the bowl over the box. He's got the top of it folded down, so it doesn't spill out, but the guy still says, “Oh, come on!” He looks up, and catches sight of Red. He looks down just as quick, and Red takes pity on him. He puts the cigarette out and goes to pick the box up. It's light, just clothes or something, probably. “Thanks,” the guy says. “I can take that back.”

Red shrugs. “I'm walking up to the third floor anyway.” His dad had taught him better than to be that much of an asshole, no matter what anyone else thinks to the contrary.

“Seriously? Thanks. Thanks a lot, that's real nice of you. Real nice.” He starts up the steps, looking over his shoulder at Red. “I'm only going up to the second floor.”

They stop at the crazy bitch's door. Guy even has a key.

“Are you her husband?” Red’s already dealt with this woman enough for a lifetime. For one, she’s one of the few people who doesn’t back down when he looks at them. For another, she has a tendency to shout at people. 

Red doesn’t like being shouted at by anyone, much less someone who isn’t even his damn neighbor. His own have enough to try and say to him about Vasquez and Faraday.

The guy shakes his head. “Who, Emma? No, I'm not! Matthew is her husband! I'm Theodore. People call me Teddy Q though, 'cause there were already like, five Theodores in the precinct, ran right out of nicknames, but no, I'm not Emma's husband.” He pushes the door open. “Emma and me went to college together. She's always been looking out for me. Seems to think I can't take care of myself.”

Red doesn't like her, but he doesn't disagree with her. Guy doesn't look like much.

“I can...” He has his hands on the box. Red lets go. “Thanks. It's just some of Emma's stuff. We were roommates back in Texas.” He talks a lot, but he's less annoying than Vasquez and Faraday. “Hey, what's your name? You never did tell me.”

“Red,” he says, uninterested in going into details. _Red Harvest_ always gets him that weird damn look and too many questions. 

Above him, he can hear the band setting up. Something thumps on the floor, and there's a lot of cursing. It sounded heavy and the cursing is in English, so either Faraday tripped over something again, or someone put him there. Another thump, and that starts the Spanish cursing. The assholes are fucking around then.

Teddy glances at the ceiling too. “Oh, yeah. Them. Emma's neighbor has a band or something. She says they're just a bunch of drunk idiots, always breaking shit up. Guess they don't care much about other people's property.”

“They don't even care about our property. We've gone through three coffee tables.” The amount of shit those two idiots have broken in their apartment is ridiculous. If it wasn't so damn funny when they managed to hurt themselves, Red would probably do something about it.

“Oh,” Teddy says, and damn, he thought Faraday turned red easy. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by that, it's just what Emma says.”

Red shrugs. “She’s not wrong.” Above them, there's another few thumps, making his point. This time though, he can make out Billy shouting. Shit. He'd better go up. He can't pay the rent by himself. He turns to leave, but remembers to say, “See you,” over his shoulder. He thinks he hears Teddy say something like _“Okay,”_ back, but Red's already halfway up the steps.

Upstairs, he finds what he expected. Faraday is sitting at the table, Goody handing him an ice pack that he presses to the back of his head. Vasquez is hovering, cackling, but he holds the thing in place for Faraday when he starts bitching about it being too cold.

“Boy, how are you still alive?” Goody asks.

“Miracles,” Red says aloud, getting a look from Vasquez. He raises his eyebrows at Red, so Red looks away. If Vasquez brings up where Red was this morning, in front of everyone, he'll kill him. Bad enough he brings it up when they're alone. “Where's Billy?”

“He needed a moment to himself, is all,” Goody answers, nodding at the balcony door.

That means he's pretty pissed off. Fucking Faraday. “What'd you do this time, idiot?”

“Shut up, asshole,” Faraday says to him. “Shit, what if I've got a concussion or something?”

Red walks over and takes the chair beside Faraday, grabbing him by the chin and forcing him to look at Red. His eyes aren't dilated. “Ears ringing?” Faraday shakes his head. “Headache or just where you got hit?”

“Where I got hit.”

“Dizzy?” There's a good chance Faraday doesn't remember what it's like to not be dizzy, with how much time he spends being drunk.

“Nah.”

“You're probably fine.” Red lets him go. “Tell me if you start feeling sick or something.”

He's surprised when Goody hands him a beer from the fridge a minute later, while Faraday groans, Vasquez still holding the ice pack for him. He nods at Goody, and he sits beside Red. “You've had some medical training?”

“Same kind you got.” Goody hums at that, and settles back, not asking any further. Red appreciates that quality in him. “Billy pissed off?”

“He is a mite bit irritated,” Goody says. “You know he just needs a minute.”

He needs a whole thirty of them, Red deciding to force the morons to help him with the set list in the meantime. Faraday doesn’t get any worse, and stops whining after awhile, so they won’t have to go to emergency clinic again, a good thing. Red thinks they’re going to give them a punch card if he has to bring in Vasquez or Faraday one more time this month.

By the time Billy calms down, they’ve already started. Red hitches his chin at Billy, but Billy just shakes his head, so it’s fine. 

Playing calms Red down, the morning fading out of his head, until he’s not thinking about anything but music. This has always been the best part about learning music; the way it makes everything go away. Even in Afghanistan, when he could play, it all just went somewhere else. 

They finish up, and head out, Billy and Goody coming with Red and the other two when the idea of going to a bar gets thrown around. It’s been a rough week in the shop, some damn BMW getting three twelve-hour days from him, the owner willing to shell out the money for a rush job . Jimmy had felt bad enough to offer Red a long weekend in turn, so Red’s not opposed to a drink.

The Jetta is still in the parking lot, but the hood is popped now, the guy from before and the crazy bitch staring at the engine. He knows that look; people who don’t know shit about cars hoping they’ll magically understand if they stare at them long enough. 

Red considers a cigarette, watching them.

“I swear to God, Teddy, why do you own a car if you don’t know anything about one?” she’s asking.

“You own a car, Emma, and you know about as much as me,” he says back. 

“At least I’m Googling,” she counters, staring at her phone. 

The guy, Teddy, that was it, sits on the curb, combing his hair back with his fingers. “I hate today,” he says. 

Beside Red, Goody tears himself away from them, and makes his way over. “Anything we can help with, Miss Emma?” Red thinks he actually feels Billy rolling his eyes. 

“My car hates me,” Teddy offers. “Do you know anything about cars?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Goody says. 

Red puts his pack away and walks over to the car, done with this shit. “What’s wrong?”

“You know about cars?” The crazy bitch looks skeptical, but Teddy stands up again and puts himself between her and Red. 

“Emma, be nice, please,” he says to her, over his shoulder, then turns back to Red. “It won’t start. I think it’s the battery, because even the clock is out. I’ve had trouble with it before, but I just got a new one, so I don’t know what’s wrong now.” 

Fucking Volkswagens. Red gets a better look at the battery, and it’s exactly what he thought. He goes to his truck, and opens the tool box to get what he needs. It only takes a minute or two to get the connection secured again. “Try it now,” he says, and Teddy does. The car starts, just like that, so Red shuts the hood, making sure the stupid latch on it catches. He hates Volkswagens. 

“Please tell me that’s not something that’s going to happen again,” Teddy says, turning the car back off and getting out. 

Red shrugs. “Should get it looked at.” He gets why people buy these damn cars, he does. But fuck the assholes that designed them, because they’re more trouble than they’re worth from his point of view. 

“Thank you,” Teddy says to him. “I appreciate it.” He looks at his feet when he smiles, brushing his hair behind his ear. “I think I’m almost out of Triple A calls.” At least he’s smart enough to have it. Red’s had too many cars driven on shredded tires into the shop to believe. “You said your name was Red?” Red nods. “I don’t know if I said, but I’m Teddy.” He nods at Goody too when he says it.

“Goodnight Robicheaux,” Goody introduces himself, reaching for Teddy’s hand and shaking it when Teddy seems to get the idea. “Over there, that’s Billy, Vasquez, and Faraday. Pleased to meet you.” Vasquez and Faraday are already climbing into the truck, so Goody adds, “Hope your evening goes better,” before doing the same, Billy holding the door for him. 

Since the crazy bitch is doing something with her phone, it’s just Red and Teddy now. 

“Sorry,” Teddy says. “Helping me out twice in one day is pretty nice of you. Thank you for it. For both times.”

Red shrugs. It’s not like he went out of his way. “Connection is loose,” he says. “Should get it looked at.” He doesn’t know why, but he adds, “If they try to tell you it’s something else, or that you need a new battery, they’re probably lying. Go to another shop.” 

“Oh,” Teddy says, blinking. “Right, thanks. Don’t really know much about cars.”

For some reason, he holds back his immediate response, _“I can tell.”_ He looks like he’s having a shitty enough day to start with, and after Red’s morning, he can empathize. “You need new tires. You hit anything, one of those is going to tear. It’ll bend the rim.” He hates seeing people do stupid shit to their cars. Probably because he’s the one who ends up fixing the mess. 

The crazy bitch has apparently been listening, because she says, “I told you so,” without looking up from her phone. “If you’re not going to listen to me, listen to Tall, Dark and Scary there.”

Red can admit he’s thrown off by that enough to stare at her. She just casually glances up at him, then back down at her phone. 

Teddy ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he says. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.” He thinks he’s getting an idea of the dynamic of this friendship. “I didn’t think about that, actually. The tires. Are you a mechanic?” Red nods. He thinks to tell Teddy the name of the shop, but before he can, he hears Faraday shouting. 

“Red, dude, come on!” 

If Faraday’s started up, he’s going to start getting on Billy’s nerves. Red’s put a lot of money into his truck, and neither of them can afford to pay for damage. So he says, “See you,” to Teddy, and heads to the truck. After he’s in, he catches sight of the crazy bitch laughing when he checks the parking lot. 

“Made a friend?” Vasquez asks, his knee up against the dash, passing a cigarette back to Faraday when Faraday leans over his seat, pawing at Vasquez. Vasquez passes it to Faraday, then snatches it back when Faraday takes two hits instead of just one. “Don’t get greedy, _gringo_.”

Faraday pushes at Vasquez’s head. “Quit calling me that!” He settles back in his seat when Red gives him a warning look. “And don’t even. Red doesn’t have friends. You know the only reason he puts up with us is for when he needs an alibi after someone at that shop finally pushes him too far.” 

“He’s my _brother_ ,” Vasquez says, looking back at Faraday. 

“All of you have records. None of you are good for an alibi,” Red refutes. 

“Hey! I’ll remind you I am disabled veteran with a respectable job,” Faraday replies, making a good point. 

Behind Red, he hears Goody hum, which means he’s about to put in his two cents. “If it gives you any comfort, Red, I am not only a decorated veteran held in high esteem, I am from a very old, well-respected family of our fine city, and I would be perfectly willing to testify on your character, and your whereabouts.”

“And he has bail money,” Billy adds. 

“ _And_ my daddy was a lawyer. I know all the good ones in town.” 

Red thinks about that. “Goody’s my new best friend.” It has the intended effect, which is pissing off Vasquez and Faraday enough they go back to squabbling with one another. Behind him though, Billy kicks his seat. 

They go to one of their usual bars, not the one Billy works in. It’s dark, quiet, and everyone keeps to themselves, exactly how Red likes a bar. It helps they have a local brew he actually likes. He nurses a bottle of it after getting talked into playing pool. Billy doesn’t play, so Red’s teamed with Goody, Vasquez and Faraday on the other side. Much as Faraday acts like a fucking idiot, even Red has to admit he’s impressed by how _good_ Faraday is at this sort of shit. Then again, he had told Red, once, when they’d gone up to put flowers on Faraday’s mother’s grave, that she’d owned a bar like this. Faraday had practically grown up in it, the two of them living in the apartment above it. 

Thinking about that unfortunately reminds him that his own mother’s birthday is coming up. 

She’d be forty-five this year, he thinks, doing the math. While Goody lines up a shot, taking as long as he can possibly can, Red tries to picture what she would look like now, but as always, he can’t. He can’t picture her with lines in her face, grey in her hair.

No. She’s always only twenty-three in his mind, her hair up in a bun, wearing a worn out Johnny Cash tee shirt and jeans. 

She never got to be anything past twenty-three, and now he hears that guy from this morning again, _“- afraid I’ll hurt her”_ , and Red -

“ _Mijo_?” He looks up at Vasquez. “It’s your turn.” 

When Red can’t manage to say anything, or even move, his hand too tight around the cue stick, Vasquez comes over and puts a hand on the back of Red’s neck. “ _You need a minute?_ ”

Red shakes his head, and lines up his own shot. He makes it, but once he’s standing straight again, Faraday planning his own out, Goody says, quietly, “If you need to step outside for a minute, none of us in this merry little group ain’t going to think anything of it.”

It’s weird, this way Goody seems to understand Red about this kind of thing, in a way even Faraday and Billy, who have all been in the service and have known him longer, don’t. Weird, but Red appreciates it. He holds up his pack of cigarettes to the group for an excuse, and steps outside. 

It’s already getting dark, but Red prefers that. When the sun is too bright, he gets nervous, can swear he smells the dirt from over there, can feel the weight of his vest and his gear. The dark is safe. Baton Rouge at night is nothing like over there. There’s already a jazz band starting up on the corner, the buildings around him lighting up, the smell of alcohol and smoke building as more people fill the sidewalk. 

Absentmindedly, he adjusts his stance, so his bad knee gets some relief. 

He lights a cigarette, and tries not to think. He knows he needs to text his dad and tell him that Red went back to therapy, so he does it.

He’s not expecting the call he gets after only a minute, but he answers it anyway. “Bored?” he asks.

“No,” Jack says. “Did you actually _talk_ at this therapy today, Red Harvest?” 

Red sighs, and it carries through. 

His dad mutters something Red doesn’t catch, then says, “Son, I know you hate it. But I just…”

The worst part is, he knows why Jack can’t say anything for a minute. Red remembers that moment, when his world felt wrong, like he was drunk. He’d been trying to take a nap on the couch, with the Smithsonian channel on, taking his meds dutifully. But he’d felt strange. Realized he had no idea what he’d been watching. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open though. Couldn’t even feel his legs, much less his bad knee.

It was only after he finally woke up at the hospital he’d found out a side-effect of the medication he’d been prescribed could cause short-term memory loss. And that he’d taken five times his dosage in less than an hour. That he was lucky he hadn’t died. 

He’d just wanted to sleep without dreaming of that place. 

Instead, he’d woken to a worse nightmare; Jack crying, hovering over him. Vasquez pale and handling everything. 

“I’m not ready,” he manages, into the phone. 

On the other end, Jack sighs, and says, “I know. But Guillermo and me, we both think maybe expanding your social circle would help. And since Guillermo is hopeless, I’m depending on you for grandchildren.”

Red smirks. Somehow, his dad always manages to pull him out of his darker thoughts. “So you’re looking to be free daycare?”

“Boy, somehow I managed to raise up you and your brother for the better. If I can manage that, I can manage anything.” He waits, and is rewarded when his dad says, “Even if you did join the _Marines_ in the end.”

“I seem to remember a lecture about how you would sooner see me living as a busker before joining the Army.”

“That don’t mean I am happy about -” Red can hear the kitchen timer going off even on his end of the line. “I’ll call you back,” his dad assures him before the line goes quiet. 

Red sticks his phone back in his hoodie pocket, concentrates on his cigarette and the dull background din. 

He looks up when some dumbass lights up some sparklers, handing them out. When he does, a woman with bright red hair catches his eye. It’s Crazy Bitch. But behind her is Teddy, who looks up and catches Red’s eye. He waves, smiling, soft and awkward.

Red waves back.


	2. Chapter 2

“ - can’t even get the names right, so he’s up on the stand, perjuring himself, but you know, I didn’t say a word, just let him go, and across the aisle I swear I can see Lucas realize just how screwed the case is now. But I still don’t say anything, because, hell, why prosecute when the defense is doing my job for me?”

Absent-mindedly,Teddy nods along, trying not to fidget. He’s going to _kill_ Emma for this. 

Then again, this is the third time she’s tricked into him a situation like this, so this is at least partly his own fault by now. 

“Sure I can’t order you a drink, Teddy?” It’s not just the phrasing that bothers Teddy; it’s the fact he’s already said twice that he doesn’t drink much, and this guy has not picked up the hint. “C’mon, this place is famous for its cocktails! Just one, I’ll pick you out a good one, promise.” 

Teddy tries not to glare at Emma, but his annoyance must come across loud and clear to her, because she steps in. “Jared, Teddy really doesn’t drink.”

“That’s ‘cause he’s a lightweight,” Matthew adds, unhelpfully. Even if it is true. 

“All the more reason for me to order him a drink, right?” Jared grins at Teddy, but Teddy doesn’t find it funny, and he’s too annoyed to even fake being nice. He looks out the window instead. 

He’s a prosecutor. Emma has apparently met him a few times at the courthouse. The last two had been lawyers as well, and just like this guy, all they’d talked about were their cases. Somehow, they all managed to paint themselves as the best lawyer in Baton Rouge. And none of them managed to ask Teddy any questions. 

He’s going to kill Emma. And he’s going to stop falling for her, _“I found this new place, let’s all go out!”_ line. She’ll probably come up with something new before long, but at least it’ll be a different trick.

Thankfully, they all finish up before long, Emma managing to get them out of dessert somehow. 

Outside the restaurant comes the awkward part though. Jared catches Teddy by the elbow, when he goes to follow Emma and Matthew. “So, how about next time, it’s just us? No chaperones?” 

“Sorry,” Teddy says. “I don’t know if Emma told you, but I just moved here not too long ago. I’m still settling in.” That line had worked the last two times, but Jared is more persistent. Why, Teddy has no idea. From how much he’d dominated the conversation tonight, about the only thing he knows about Teddy is his name and his job. 

“I could help with that,” Jared says, his hand on Teddy’s hip. 

“Maybe some other time,” Teddy deflects, moving away from him and finally managing to leave. Once he catches up with Emma and Matthew, he says, “I hate you,” to Emma. 

“Alright, he was a jackass,” she admits, ducking around Matthew, ostensibly to use him as a human shield. “No hitting, we’re not kids anymore!” 

He elbows Matthew instead. “Don’t think I don’t know you were in on it,” he says, when Matthew looks wounded.

“Fair enough,” Matthew agrees, shrugging. “Though, I want to say, I told her it was a bad idea. I’ve met him before, too, and I always thought he was a jackass.” 

“I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Emma says. “We’re usually up against one another in the courtroom, I assumed he was just acting like that because of that. It’s not like I’m very nice at work.” Since she’s a public defender, Emma couldn’t really afford to be very nice, from Teddy’s experience. _Nice_ didn’t save sixteen-year-olds from being tried as adults over petty crimes. .

“Because you’re such a sweetheart outside of work,” Matthew drawls though, followed by an _oof_ when Emma obviously elbows him on his other side. “I would like to remind you both I am not actually involved in any of this, so why am I the one getting beat up?” 

“You knew it was a package deal when you married me,” Emma replies. 

Embarrassed, even if he does like it when Emma stands by him, Teddy uses the excuse of putting up his hair to duck his head. 

“But see, when you said that, I thought it meant I got to have sex with Teddy, too,” Matthew says, making Teddy want to die. 

Worse is when Emma adds, “And if Teddy was bisexual or I was a man, that would be the case,” and now he really wants to be anywhere but here. “But since I don’t do anything for him, and he cooks better than me, I’m not risking that. You can have that chance if I divorce you for leaving your dishes in the sink one more damn time.” 

“Honey, if we got divorced, you’d make Teddy your houseboy before I even got a shot at him.”

“I hate you both,” Teddy says, his face on fire. “And would you please stop trying to set me up already? It’s not going to work.” He accepted he wasn’t really anyone’s thing back in high school, and since the one time he did manage to attract someone -

He swallows, shoving his hands in his pockets. He’s in Baton Rouge now, not Austin. It’s not something he needs to worry about anymore, Emma had made sure of that. 

“Teddy, you’re adorable. I’ll find you a man, come hell or high water.” Emma says breezily.

“I’m six-foot,” he replies, sour over being called _adorable_. He’s heard it too many times from men telling him exactly why they weren’t attracted to him to take it as a compliment, and besides that, _adorable_ is what people call babies and puppies. He’s a grown man, he’s not _adorable_. 

Matthew refutes that with, “Teddy, even I think your big brown eyes are cute.” 

“We’re not friends anymore,” Teddy manages.

“That’s ‘cause we’re family,” Emma says, stepping in front of Matthew so she can reclaim her middle space and loop her arm through Teddy’s. “I really am sorry, Teddy. I didn’t know he was like that outside work too. But, well...he is a prosecutor. You pretty much have to be an asshole to pick that side.” 

He’s tempted to ask her where that particular logic was back when she cooked up this idea, but he’s not in the mood to rile her up today. Truth be told, he hadn’t really been in the mood to go out at all. It had been a bad shift today. Nothing to make him lose his hope in humanity, at least for now, but a lot of tiresome calls about nonsense, followed by an extremely tiresome call that had given him something like a headache. Not to mention his car, and the fact he’d embarrassed himself in front of that guy, Red. 

Somehow, in all her rants about those _“stupid drunken idiots and their damned bullshit -”_ , she had failed to mention that they were mostly unfairly good-looking. 

At least Red had been nice about the whole thing. He’d even waved back when they’d passed him outside that bar.

“What are you thinking about?” Emma interrupts. 

“Oh,” Teddy glances down at her, “your neighbor. Or, their friend. That was really nice of him.” 

“I guess,” she says. “That one is kind of creepy, if you ask me. He never says anything. I think today was the first time I actually heard him speak.” She nudges Matthew, getting his attention. “Hey, I forgot to tell you. Turns out that scary one upstairs actually can talk.”

“Yes, Emma, I’ve heard Billy talk. Though how he gets a word in edgewise with Goody around, I don’t know.” 

“No, the other one, the one with all the tattoos on his shoulders?” That actually gets Matthew to whistle. “I know, right? He had a whole conversation with Teddy. It was about that stupid Jetta, mind you, but still: words. Real words.” 

Teddy doesn’t like hearing her be mean, not when Red had been helpful when he didn’t have to be. “Well, obviously he’s nicer than you thought. Maybe he just doesn’t like to talk.” 

“Quit being my conscience, Teddy,” she says, tugging his arm tighter. “I’m a lawyer, I can’t afford one. Anyway, did I tell you we finally picked a color for the kitchen?” 

“Only a year after you moved in,” Teddy says dryly, and gets pinched for it. 

Later on that evening, once Teddy’s home and showered, he sits on his bed and towels off his hair. It tends to curl if he falls asleep with it wet, and he doesn’t need to let Hernandez see it that way. She’ll spend the whole day finding excuses to touch it, just to mess with him. 

He’s starting to suspect he only got partnered with her because he was too new to the precinct to know any better. 

In any case, after the disaster that today has been, he knows he’s not going to be in the mood to deal with any of her teasing tomorrow. 

Still, this is better than Austin. 

_Alaska_ would be better than Austin.

In the morning, he doesn’t bother fighting with his housemates over space in the kitchen, and stops at a cafe for breakfast instead. He gets an Americano for Hernandez too, which she takes gleefully when he comes in. 

“And finally, I have broken you in,” she crows. “What are you drinking? Is that a mocha?” She gets a better look, and grins, Teddy holding his drink away defensively. “God, why even drink coffee if you’re going to ruin it with a bunch of sugar?” 

“I like it.” It’s more defensive than it needs to be, and he knows she catches it. “Sorry,” he mutters. 

“No biggie,” she says, waving it off. “So, what’d you get up to after work yesterday? After that call out to the fucking hippies over a damn _tractor_ of all things, the only thing I was up for was a bath and some Netflix. Maybe some wine.” 

That had been a nightmare of a call, some kind of dispute over the management of the community garden, and even after three hours of trying to get a straight story out of _anyone_ , all Teddy had learned was that apparently even hippies could be petty jerks. He wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t re-started it as soon as Hernandez and him were gone. And in the end, it had been over whether it was morally ethical to use a gas-powered tractor instead of a greener option. 

Three hours and several possible assault charges over a _tractor_. 

“I went out with Emma and Matthew.” Hernandez knows Matthew from around the precinct, but she’s heard probably more than she wanted to about Emma from Teddy, after she asked about the picture of him Emma on his desk. It’s not a great picture, the angle awkward since he had been holding the camera, but still, a good memory. 

They’d been at a protest on-campus. If someone knows to look, they can just make out the sprawled body on the sidewalk behind them. Some frat boy had decided to call Emma a _stupid slut_ , and when that hadn’t gotten a reaction, he’d changed tactics, and called Teddy a fag.

_That_ had gotten a reaction. The asshole got a broken nose, and Emma got a boxer’s break she’d had to wear a brace for. 

“Oh, let me guess,” Hernandez says, spinning in her chair. “Mama Bear set you up with another lawyer?” When he nods, she laughs. “Come on, Teddy Q, let me introduce you to someone. My cousin Manuel is single, he’s good-looking.” 

He has to think before he places the name. “Isn’t Manuel your cousin that everyone calls Kitty? The one with the record for stealing cars or something?” Hernandez had tried to explain to him why the man was called that, but he hadn’t really understood. 

“It was _one_ car, and whatever, it was some stupid dare to show everyone that he’s all big and bad now that he’s grown. Let me set you up with him. You can ask him about all the times me and my sisters would babysit him, and put make-up on him. His dad still blames us for making Manuel gay.” She shrugs. “One day I’m going to break it to Uncle Eddie that Kitty had a crush on Leo back when he was like, six.” 

Teddy notices Sam behind Hernandez, but before he can warn her, Sam is looming over her, saying, “And one day, someone’s going to break it to you that you’re here to do a job, Hernandez, not gossip.” 

She doesn’t even flinch. “I’m not gossiping, Captain, I’m trying to get Teddy laid.” 

“You are a walking sexual harassment liability,” Sam says mildly. “I want the paperwork for whatever the hell was going on down at that community garden by noon. Apparently some vandalism charges have been pressed. You two missed the real fun.” 

“Damn it,” Hernandez groans. “Do we have to talk to those people again?” 

“It’s what the taxpayers are paying you for,” Sam says, clapping her on the shoulder, before looking up at Teddy. “Don’t let her eat them.” 

Teddy doesn’t make any promises, mostly because he doesn’t think he’ll be very inclined to stop her if he has to listen to any of those people go on another rant about responsibly-obtained seeds or rainwater barrels. 

What he does get, five hours later, is Hernandez somehow managing to hold her temper, her barely-held restraint clear in her tone, when she asks the man sitting across the table from them, one Jonah Smith, “You do understand we have you _on camera_ vandalizing the tractor, right?” He should, considering the surveillance security system that had been installed at said community garden had, in fact, been installed by Jonah Smith himself. 

“I’m not some idiot off the street,” Jonah says. “I’m not going to be intimidated into making a false confession to you people.” 

Teddy opens the manila folder that the tech had given them, and neatly places several still-screens from the footage, all clearly showing Jonah Smith pouring sand into the tank of the tractor before dumping a can of paint over the controls. 

“Is this the part where you tell us you have an identical twin, Mr. Smith?” Hernandez asks. 

He sneers at them both. “People like you have no hope of understanding what I am fighting for, so I don’t expect either of you to perhaps grasp the thought that images can be manipulated quite easily.”

“ _You_ installed these cameras, Mr. Smith, and several of your friends were only too happy to tell us how much you bragged about the strength in the security on the feed. So it seems to me the only person who could have had the access to manipulate these photos is yourself,” Teddy points out. For that matter, half of the hippies had fallen over themselves to snitch on this guy, and after talking to him, he understands why. This man is insufferably _smug_. “Would you like to explain that?”

He asks for a lawyer instead, and Teddy follows Hernandez out of the room, trying not to wince when she kicks the Coke machine. He knows she doesn’t mean anything by it, but it makes him think of the apartment in Austin and -

_\- a hole in the wall, and then Teddy shoved back into it, hard enough to hurt_

“Teddy?” 

He’s in Baton Rouge. Not Austin. And this is Hernandez. 

“Sorry,” she says, and he ducks his head. “No, really, sorry. I know you don’t like it when I lose my temper like that.” That she’s _noticed_ embarrasses him more. “Just, guys like that? They piss me off. He’s sitting in there acting like he’s Rosa Parks, when he’s just some rich white jackass, talking down to us _others_ , and you know, the lady who owned that tractor is a _nurse_ , and she’s going to have to eat the loss because he’ll get a good lawyer, and -” She swears in Spanish. “I can’t fucking stand this city sometimes.” 

Teddy leans on the wall, shrugging. “Could be worse,” he says. “Could be raining.” 

“It’s October in Baton Rouge. Give it five minutes.” She bangs her head into the Coke machine, and sighs. “You are literally the only person I know who can quote _Young Frankenstein_.” 

“Local movie theater used to have free screenings during the week of the classics,” Teddy tells her. “Since I wasn’t exactly being invited to the kegger in high school, think I’ve seen pretty much everything any critic ever thought had merit.” It hadn’t been like the group home had been keeping track of them all that well either. He’d come back in past midnight after seeing _Young Frankenstein_ , and never heard a word about it.

“You were getting the better deal,” she replies. “You got some cultural exposure. I just got groped by a bunch of dumbass football players.” She turns, and slides down to the floor, back to the Coke machine. She’s already almost a foot shorter than Teddy when they’re standing, so to save himself the crick in the neck, he sits down on the floor beside her, cross-legged. 

“Even a lawyer can’t make those pictures go away. And remember, we did get a few witness statements that he was talking about doing something about that tractor.” Some pictures lie, but these ones weren’t. It’s a closed circuit security system. And they’d obtained the footage legally, as it had been Smith’s wife who had allowed them access. “Is he going to jail? Not a chance. But he will have to pay for that tractor.” 

It’d be a slap on the wrist compared to what a judge would do to some poor kid pulling the same stupid stunt, but at least the nurse wouldn’t be out a few grand. And Smith definitely had the money to pay for it. 

Hernandez huffs. “Why do you have to be so _reasonable_ all of the time?” She peeks at him. “Is that like...a Jewish thing? Because there is that joke -” When he frowns at her, she course-corrects. “Crossing the ‘offensive’ line?”

“Coming up on it,” he says. He knows what joke she means. 

“We talking ‘assuming I’m Catholic and make tortillas from scratch’ offensive, or ‘Frat Bros in Brownface’?” 

Teddy considers it. “Somewhere in the middle. Much closer to the first one.” He settles forward, elbows on his knees. “You can barely make a sandwich.” 

“Eh. My dad is the cook in our house. Mom prefers to scream at the football game during holidays. My brothers are bomb-ass cooks though.” She perks up. “Hey, my brother Will is only twenty, but we’ve always said he was an old soul -”

“I am not becoming your in-law,” Teddy says flatly. 

He’s not opposed to finally having a family outside of Emma and Matthew. But being related to Hernandez kind of scares him. 

“Fine,” she concedes. “Alright, have we wallowed in despair at the criminal justice enough for this one?” Teddy nods, and stands up, offering her a hand. “I hope one of the other hippies snaps and punches him in the face.” 

Teddy shrugs, not wanting to advocate violence, but even he can’t say he’d feel too sorry for Smith, so he settles for saying nothing. 

The ensuing paperwork takes up the rest of the shift, and will likely fill up the next week, especially since the copy machine still refuses to work consistently, even when Hernandez threatens to set it on fire. Teddy’s actually pretty sure that’s not helping, but it seems to make her feel better to shout at the thing, and since no one involved in this case is dead or dying, he’s not in a hurry. 

He looks up from his phone when Matthew and Sam walk in, Matthew raising his eyebrows when he hears how vehemently Hernandez is swearing in Spanish.

“Do I want to know what she’s saying?” Matthew asks Sam. 

“It’s nothing good,” Teddy explains, from his spot on the floor. His Spanish is iffy, mostly relegated to necessary phrases for the job, like, _“Are you hurt?”_ and, the longest thing he can say reliably, _“Please wait here for the interpreter.”_. It’s all really more a memorized script than him actually being able to speak the language, but a combination of living in Texas most of his life and being partnered with Hernandez this past month has taught him plenty of swear words. “Do you need something, Captain?” Sam doesn’t usually come into the copy room on his own.

He doesn’t like the look on Sam’s face, and he really doesn’t like the way Matthew sort of smiles at Teddy before handing him a file. When he opens the file, he sighs and gets Hernandez’s attention, the copier finally complying now, and hands it to her. 

“This is a fucking joke,” she says, turning to Matthew. “Tell me this is a joke, Cullen.”

“‘Fraid not,” he says. “Picked them up an hour ago. Got ‘em cooling their heels in holding. Made sure to keep them separate.” Matthew shakes his head. “I do not envy you two this mess. I had this old woman in cuffs and she was _still_ trying to go for the guy she’d been beating. Had to throw her over my shoulder and lock her in the squad car.” 

Hernandez slaps the folder against her leg. “Teddy Q, remind me what started this?”

“A tractor.” He hates even saying it. This is possibly one of the dumbest and pettiest cases he’s ever worked.

It makes a good story to tell Emma later that night though, the pair of them sitting out in the open-air staircase of her apartment building while she smokes an illicit cigarette, Teddy indulging in a bottle of the hard cider he knows Emma only buys for him. 

She’s bright red, gasping for breath as she laughs, while Teddy tells her the whole stupid story, only interrupting him when he tells her about Mrs. Gupta. 

“You’re telling me a four-foot-ten, sixty-year-old woman kicked a twenty-year-old, six-foot man’s ass?” she manages to get out. “No, you’re fucking with me.” 

“You don’t believe me, ask Matthew. He actually saw it happen.” Teddy had only seen the aftermath. 

Mrs. Gupta, who only came up to his collarbone, was apparently on Latoya Harrison’s side, the nurse who owned the tractor in question. When Kayden Reese, who was still in the self-righteous stage of being a vegan, from what Teddy could tell, had tried to say Ms. Harrison had it coming, the entire thing had blown up, and Mrs. Gupta had, for all intents and purposes, kicked Mr. Reese’s ass. 

Emma falls into his shoulder, her nails in his arm, she’s laughing so hard. “Only you would get this case, Teddy, and I’m _loving_ it.”

“At least you’re enjoying it,” he says. “This is ridiculous. And over a _tractor_!” Tired, and not looking forward to the next few weeks of sorting out this mess, he hangs his head between his drawn-up knees. “If this hits your desk, I’m going to laugh.” It’s happened once or twice before, a case Teddy’s worked ending up in Emma’s roster. 

“No can do, Teddy Q,” Emma says, her favorite joke when she’s a little tipsy. “My roster is full for the next of, oh, for- _fucking_ -ever. The hippies will probably get handed off to the new girl.” 

Teddy stands up, and goes inside to grab another cider for him, and a beer for Emma. Matthew is still dozing on the couch, the game on. “Don’t get too drunk, Teddy, or Emma will make you sleep over,” he calls out. 

Truth is, it’s probably past that point. Teddy had been talked into doing two shots of pumpkin-spice flavored vodka with Emma about an hour ago, after Emma declared it the most disgusting thing to ever exist and they absolutely had to drink it. That combined with the cider, and Teddy really being a genuine lightweight, he’s tipsy. 

He doesn’t mind though. None of them have to work tomorrow, and Emma would probably want to hang out anyway.

Back outside, he hands her the beer and sits back down beside her. “Think we’re having a sleepover,” he says. He feels a bit dizzy now that he’s sat down. 

“My dastardly plan has worked,” she teases, leaning on him. “Did I tell you I found some monsters movies in the bargain bin? _New_ ones, for us at least.” 

He’s been played. “You could have just _asked_.”

It was one of the first things Emma and him and found they had in common when they’d met at freshman orientation; loving terrible old horror movies. Teddy had gotten into them into middle school, when his choices were between going back to an overcrowded foster home, back before he got placed in the group home, or going to the local community college’s movie events, where they screened pretty much anything they could get for free. Getting to watch the classics at an actual movie theater after he got placed at the group home had been great, but he had a fondness for the truly awful dreck the community college had screened.

Emma had declared them best friends right away when she found out he knew what _Vampire Circus_ was, and had in fact seen it three times. 

_“The panther head on a stick!”_ , she’d gasped, both of them trying to point out every terrible part of the movie. 

“What did you find?” he asks, giving in. 

“How do you feel about a movie where Santa Claus goes on a murder spree?” she asks. 

“Since I’m Jewish, and an orphan, probably less culturally violated than you do.” 

Emma smacks a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t say that. You’re not an orphan anymore, you have me and Matthew.” He lets her hug him, because he likes it, and he knows she knows it. “That said, if me and Matthew ever do get divorced, all jokes aside, we have a pre-nup, and that means I get sole custody of you.” 

“You’re drunk,” Teddy tells her, because she is if she’s bringing that up. Her reasoning, when she cared to explain, was that since she had brought Teddy into the marriage, she got to keep him. 

“I know that,” she says, laughing. “I found a Krampus movie that has Mr. Bates from _Downton Abbey_ in it!” 

Before he can ask, he hears people on the steps, and when he looks up, he sees Red again, with the rest of them. He’s pretty sure both of the big ones are already drunk, or well on their way to it, from the way they’re falling all over one another as they walk, but Red isn’t, and he doesn’t seem very interested in helping them. When he sees Teddy though, he stops. 

The neighbor though, the white guy, comes up to them, grinning. “Ms. Emma, I do believe you’ve been imbibing,” the neighbor says. It takes Teddy a second to remember his name, _Goody_ , so he feels bad when Goody doesn’t seem to have any trouble remembering Teddy’s. “Are you corrupting our local paragon of virtue, Teddy?” 

Emma actually snickers. “As if. Other way around, Goody. Teddy couldn’t corrupt a kitten. He’s my victim.” She’s _definitely_ drunk, because she kisses Teddy on the cheek again, obnoxiously loud. She always gets affectionate when she’s drunk, and usually Teddy doesn’t mind, but behind where Goody is crouching in front of them, he sees Red raise his eyebrows. 

Maybe he’ll think it’s the alcohol that’s making Teddy blush. With his luck, not likely, but maybe. He doesn’t even know why he cares, it’s not like he _knows_ Red. 

One of the big guys, the white one, breaks away from his friend and leans on the railing beside Teddy. “Hey, it’s you again,” he says, ducking down a little, somewhat steadily. “How is it we’ve never run into each other before? You look like you could use a run-in with me.” 

“No hitting on Teddy!” Emma commands, reaching over Teddy to bat at the guy. “He is off-limits, you dumbass!” 

“What are you, his mom?” 

“I’m his best friend, and he’s too good for you,” she snaps. 

Teddy puts an arm out, pushing her back to her side with little trouble, even if he wants to die right now. Why hadn’t they just gone inside already? This is a new humiliation, even for him.

On his other side, he hears, “Quit it, jackass.” It’s Red, pulling the guy away and pushing him back towards the other big guy. They’re both laughing, the Hispanic guy slinging an arm around the white one. “Head upstairs.” 

“Yes sir, Sgt. North, sir!” The white guy says, saluting, while the Hispanic guy laughs, but they do go up the next flight. 

“He don’t mean anything by it,” Goody says, standing straight with a noticeable wince. “Boy hits on everything that moves. Well, have yourselves a good night, you two.” Once he heads for the stairs, his boyfriend follows. 

Red doesn’t though, while Teddy stands up and helps Emma get to her feet. She goes right for the door, saying something about food, leaving just Teddy and Red on the landing. “Sorry if she insulted your friend,” Teddy offers. He wishes he was sober. “She gets over-protective.” He _really_ wishes he was sober, because Emma only got this over-protective after what happened back in Austin, and he doesn’t even like thinking about Austin when he’s sober. 

They’re the same height, Teddy notices, or nearly. Red might have an inch on him, but they’re still eye-level. He spends so much time looking down, it’s nice to stand up straight. 

He’s _definitely_ drunk. 

“She’s not wrong,” Red says, shrugging. “Should go inside. It’s cold.” 

It’s Teddy who shrugs now. “Kind of left all my hoodies back in Austin.” It wasn’t like it had been by choice, but that’s where they were, if they even still existed anywhere outside a landfill, and Teddy had given Matthew the one he’d loaned Teddy back. He’d meant to get a new one when he got here, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He’s regretting that now. “Emma will be dragging me out all night anyway. Matthew doesn’t let her smoke inside. I’ll just freeze and hope my blood thins out.”

Red actually smiles, and Teddy blames the alcohol for why he looks down, smiling too. 

“Here,” Red says, taking the hoodie hanging off his guitar case and handing it to Teddy. “Garage gives them to us for free.” 

“So this is marketing?” Teddy asks. 

“You still need new tires.” 

“Yeah, but they’ll have to wait until my next paycheck.” No one had ever told him how much maintenance on a VW cost, but he’s learning. 

Red just shrugs again, and starts up the steps. “See you,” he says. 

Teddy goes inside, and him and Emma get through two truly terrible movies, one involving Santa with a chainsaw, before they go outside for another cigarette on Emma’s part, and another mixed drink Emma had insisted on making him. Mostly because she’d wanted one of her own. They’d done a few more shots of the fucking awful vodka during the second movie, playing their usual game of spotting certain cliches before the other, and now with this drink, they’re both pretty drunk. 

“Hey, wait,” she says, when they’re sitting, managing to keep her balance and her cigarette in hand while she taps at Teddy’s chest. “Where’d you get this?” 

“Oh.” He has to think a minute before he remembers. “The guy...Red. He gave it to me. It’s from his job.” 

“That explains the oil smell,” she says, sitting back on her free hand. “I couldn’t figure out where that was coming from.” She pauses, sniffing in the cold air. “Why’d he give you that?” 

“Think he’s trying to get me to bring the Jetta into his shop,” Teddy reasons. He knows he probably needs to, actually. “Do you know how much new tires cost?” 

“Yes, Teddy. I am an adult with a husband who can’t even keep track of what month it is, meaning I am the adult who takes care of the car. I know how much tires cost.” She nudges him with her knee. “You okay? You need money?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that. The Jetta is just a lot. I’m thinking maybe I’ll sell it, and go back to the bus. I only got it because the bus didn’t go from your place to the precinct back in Austin. That’s not an issue here.” It would take more time, but the bus would easily get him from the house to the precinct, and a bus pass here is a lot less than the car insurance alone, much less the upkeep. “I don’t even like driving. And driving here is awful.”

“That’s fair,” Emma concedes. “Teddy...I know you didn’t come out here for me, but you’re okay, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Emma,” Teddy says. 

“I didn’t mean _that_ ,” she says quickly. “Trust me, the only time I ever want to hear that asshole’s name again is in his obituary.” He doesn’t have anything to say to that, so he looks out through the wrought-iron railing. “I meant...you like it here, right? I know it’s not like Austin, but here in the city isn’t too bad.” She pauses. “Okay, it’s kind of exactly like Austin, but more French than Spanish.” 

He gets her meaning now. “Honestly, Austin was pretty lonely once you were gone. After what happened, I was a …” He can’t think of the word. “That thing where no one likes you.” 

“A pariah?” Emma hazards, and shakes her head. “I tried to warn you to get a transfer before we got things moving with that protective order. None of those assholes were going to turn on McCann. He’s got that sociopath’s money to back him up.” 

She _had_ tried to warn him, but Teddy had stubbornly clung to the belief that a precinct was like a family, and they’d pick his side. They hadn’t, but he should have known; the only person who’s consistently been on his side in his whole life has been Emma, with Matthew as a close second. “I like working for Sam. You were right. He’s a good man. And I think I like being partnered with Hernandez.” He thinks about it some more, feeling a bit sentimental, what with all the alcohol currently in him. “The city is beautiful. I’ve been getting some great photos. And I like all the music.” This time, it’s him who leans on Emma’s shoulder, her patting his hair. “And I missed you and Matthew.” 

“I missed you, too,” she says. “Matthew has shitty taste in movies. Did I tell you he made me go see that new _Mission: Impossible_ movie with him?” Teddy makes a disgusted noise, not quite able to form any coherent words. “I know, right? He _loved_ it. The things I put up with for that man, I swear.”

Teddy never has understood Matthew’s taste in movies. Once, they were all still all just friends, they’d gone to the movies, and it had been Matthew’s turn to pick. So instead of seeing _How To Train Your Dragon_ , Teddy and Emma had suffered through _Yes, Man_.

Emma nudges him again. “Hey, I saw an ad you might like. The community center wants to do a showing of local art from said community. Halloween-themed. You know, like all the haunted shit around here.” 

“Maybe some of the trick-or-treaters,” Teddy counters. Like schlocky horror movies, he loves Halloween, with the same kind of nostalgic fondness. His father had been really into Halloween, and it’s one of the last strong memories he has of his dad. “Some parents have been asking if I’ll take some photos for them.” He volunteers for crossing-guard duty for the elementary school once a week, and the kids have all been eager to tell him their upcoming costumes. 

“Damn it, Teddy, you better _charge_ them,” Emma demands, mumbling a bit now. 

“It’s not like I’m a professional,” he protests, and gets smacked for it. “What, I’m not! You want me to start charging you when you drag me to your next cause?” 

“That’s different, I’m _family_!” She settles back down, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “But you should enter some stuff. You used to do it all the time, remember? And people liked your stuff.” They had, actually. He’d even managed to sell some prints, a few times, even though he hadn’t been intending to. 

Emma is actually the overly proud owner of one of his photos, enlarged and framed, placed in the entryway of the apartment. It had snowed in Austin for once, and Emma had been wearing one of Matthew’s too-big metal band hoodies. Teddy had managed to capture her bending over to scoop up snow to throw at Matthew, off-frame, her hair flying behind her. She always tells everyone it’s the only picture of herself she likes. Besides the fact it had been a good day, a soft kind of memory Teddy had few of back then, it had been a lucky shot, the composition exactly perfect for capturing the joy of that day. 

Sometimes still, he managed those lucky shots, where he preserved on film a piece of the day; someone laughing, people talking, something _genuine_. He knows that’s why Emma is bringing it up; she knows how happy photography makes him.

And she knows why he stopped for awhile there. First, he’d stopped entering his photos. Then he’d stopped attending. Finally, he had stopped taking photos altogether, his camera sitting unused in its bag in for months. 

Joseph hadn’t liked Teddy doing things that made him happy. 

He thinks about it though, safe in the here and now in Baton Rouge. “Maybe, if I get any good shots.” 

Emma sits up though, and says, “Seriously, Teddy, we need to put this hoodie in the washing machine, it smells like it lived in an engine.” 

Neither of them are sober enough to manage that, and by the time they get through yet another movie, this one about a group of people being killed by a bear that follows them around, despite them being in a car, and one person escaping to a restaurant, and a curious lack of actual _bear_ , they’re both too drunk to do much beyond pass out on the couch together. 

He wakes up to Emma kicking him from her side of the couch, whining, “Teddy, the curtains.”

Teddy can’t move, but the curtains on the sliding glass doors do shut. 

“Can I least get a blowjob?” It’s Matthew, standing over Teddy. 

“You’re not my type,” Teddy manages, his headache enough to have him burying his face in his pillow. 

“Matthew,” he hears Emma whine. “Coffee. And breakfast.”

“Do you want McDonald’s?” Matthew asks, and fuck him, Teddy can hear him laughing. 

“Yes,” Emma demands, and kicks Teddy again. “We want McDonald’s, right Teddy?”

“Starbucks,” Teddy disputes, because his head hurts, and he wants a mocha.

“Starbucks,” Emma agrees. “You know our orders.” 

“Yes, dear.” He hears Matthew kiss Emma’s forehead, and can only manage to squirm when Matthew kisses Teddy’s forehead too, Matthew laughing. Fuck, Teddy’s head hurts. His everything hurts.

By the time Matthew gets back, both Emma and Teddy are a bit more coherent. Teddy takes his mocha outside, the fresh, albeit cold, air helping with his hangover. For some reason, maybe thinking about the community project Emma was talking about, he takes his camera out with him. 

The sun is sitting fat and bright over the cars in the parking lot, the windshields still frosted over, when the local teenagers congregate, setting up goal posts. One side uses two fake pumpkins, the other side a traffic cone and a plastic flower pot.

One kid scores, and just like that -

A lucky shot, a soccer ball getting shot through two pumpkins, the kid falling and laughing when his kick works -

He gets a few more shots, none as good as the first one, but probably still okay, by the time Emma joins him out on the balcony. Just to do it, he snaps a picture of her, in her pajamas and her old Linkin Park hoodie, but he asks, all the same, “You really think I should submit some stuff?

“Yeah,” she says, slumping over the railing. “I do, Teddy Q.”


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a nice enough night they just have the screen door shut, the air flow keeping the room bearable even with as much weed as they’ve gone through. Red’s on his fourth joint of the night, himself, his guitar sitting across his lap. 

Vasquez and Faraday are arguing about arrangements for the song they’re all supposedly trying to write, but Red’s not paying attention at this point. He’s got nothing to contribute, not right now. 

He’d gone to the group therapy again after work. Too much for one day, for him, but he’d picked the joint over the prescription bottle when he’d gotten home. They’d switched him to a new one this month, and while it helped him sleep, it made him muddled, and not in a comfortable way. And he sleeps too deeply anyway. He wants to go to the gym in the morning, and he needs to be awake for that. 

The weed doesn’t fuck him up like that, just softens the edges of his nerves enough he can bear being around people again.

He finishes this one, and puts it out in the ashtray on the coffee table, taking a swig of his beer after. Once he’s sitting back in his chair, he starts playing, picking out a familiar tune. 

“Red,” Faraday says, complaining. “Dude, the Johnny Cash is not helping. Unless you want to remind us how much we suck right now.” 

Just to fuck with him, Red switches up the tune to _Ain’t No Sunshine_ , making Faraday curse and throw a pillow at him in response. “Come on, man, you know I hate that song! Do you have any idea how many times I had to listen to it when I was a kid?” 

Red shrugs. Not his problem. Besides, his mom had liked this one. She used to sing along to it in the kitchen. 

“Leave it alone, Josh, or he’ll start up with Guns & Roses,” Vasquez warns. 

“He doesn’t even like Guns & Roses!” It’s true. Red fucking hates them. But Faraday hates them more, and it’s not hard for Red to do a simple version of _November Rain_ , if the result is Faraday claiming Red’s killing him. But he’s not in the mood to suffer just to fuck with Faraday, so he stays on _Ain’t No Sunshine_. He thinks he’d like this one even if he didn’t have a connection to it. 

Truth was, he’d forgotten most of his mom’s music by the time he’d come to live with Jack and Vasquez. He’d only been six when he went into the system, and by then most of his memories of her had holes in them. 

One night though, he’d been sitting at the kitchen table, doing his homework while Jack did the dishes, the radio on. Jack liked the old stuff. Red had been staring at language arts worksheet, trying to remember just what had happened in _Rifles for Watie_ , beyond that he had hated the book, when he had heard the strains of this song start. It had pulled at something long-forgotten, and he’d looked up, listening.

Jack had noticed, but he hadn’t said anything. He’d turned it up, and kept doing the dishes. 

After that, Red had become obsessed with the radio station, and again, Jack had noticed. He’d bought Red a book about Johnny Cash and some CDs. It hadn’t been something they needed to talk about, not really. Jack had always seemed to understand that kind of thing, when it came to Red, where no one else had. 

When he’s done, he transitions to _Jolene_ , really just to fuck with Faraday, and gets a, “Fuck you, Red!” out of it. 

He’d been eleven, almost twelve, and he’d finally gotten to go back home after the social worker deemed that the stupid fight Red had gotten in at school didn’t mean Jack was not providing a stable environment. He’d spent five days in a different foster home, and he’s not ashamed to admit he cried the first night. 

Carefully, he strums through the chorus. His dad loves Dolly Parton, claims she’s a true example of the charity Jesus had tried to teach humanity. 

When he’d gotten home that day, he’d gotten hugged so hard it hurt. But it was after Jack had gotten some breakfast in him and put his clothes in the laundry, that Jack had sat down at the table with Red, and asked Red how he felt about being adopted. 

Older kids never got adopted. Everyone knew that. 

But somehow Red got lucky, for the first time in his life, it felt like. He’d kept his mother’s last name, Jack never asking, knowing what it meant to Red to hold onto that part of her, but he thinks she would have been happy for him, when the judge declared Red as adopted, and he’d been stuck between Jack and Vasquez. Only it had been a good kind of stuck, a permanent kind.

He’d gone home from court that day, hardly believing that finally, he had a home no one could take him from. 

_Jolene_ finishes, and Red turns to Patsy Cline, picking out _Crazy_. He’s comfortably high, but he can play these songs blind. Besides, he’s bored, waiting for Vasquez and Faraday to just agree on _something_. It’s drama Red doesn’t want to listen to, honestly. Vasquez is just being bitchy because Faraday had mentioned that guy, Teddy, earlier tonight. 

Red might love Vasquez, but he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with Vasquez and Faraday’s weird fucking relationship anymore than he has to. And it wasn’t like the guy looked interested, anyway. 

Might be funny to see what the Crazy Bitch would do to Faraday if he tried again though. 

“Whatever, fuck it, we’re not getting anywhere,” Faraday finally says. “Let’s just ask Goody tomorrow.” Goody’s been helping with lyrics lately. Red gets the idea he’s probably better-educated than any of them, and he’s good with words anyway. 

Vasquez mutters something in Spanish that Red doesn’t catch enough of, but he’s not really listening anyway. He starts playing _I Walk the Line_ , not surprised when Vas joins in, settling back in the arm of the couch, bass in hand. 

They strum through it together, Faraday settling back on his side of the couch with his phone. “I so do not get you two’s hard-on for Johnny Cash,” he says mildly. 

“Told you, _gringo_ , we used to play this when we were kids,” Vasquez says. “Who doesn’t like the Man in Black?” 

Faraday shrugs, getting up when the scratching at the screen door starts. “Hey, Jack,” he says, opening it and letting the beast in. “Did you kill anything today? Oh, I bet you did, buddy. Those squirrels never stood a chance.” 

“Yeah, about that,” Vasquez says, while Red eyes Faraday’s cat, the massive tomcat having jumped onto the coffee table. “I saw something on the Internet saying we shouldn’t let him roam like that. Something about domestic cats being eco-terrorists.” 

The cat is eyeing Red’s beer. Red meets his eyes, and fucking dares the bastard. 

But seeing as how this Jack is a cat, and an absolute asshole, he doesn’t care, and Red has to grab the bottle when the jackass tries to knock it off the table. 

“Jack is not a terrorist!” Faraday protests, scratching the monster on the head. “And we can’t keep him inside all day, he’ll get bored.”

Bad things happen to their belongings when the cat gets bored. Last winter, there’d been too much sleet and snow to risk letting him out, and after the second day of confinement, while they were all at work, the cat had somehow managed to shred the paper towels, drag the laundry all around the house, torn up the side of the couch, and had actually managed to open the fucking freezer door, defrosting everything, and leaving a bloody mess down the front of the fridge. 

“Nah, I’m serious,” Vasquez is saying. “Maybe we could like, make him one of those outdoor runs, or something? ‘Sides, him wandering around the place can’t be safe. What if he gets hit by a car? I could probably rig up something with some chicken wire.” 

The cat is looking at Red. Honestly, he’s not entirely convinced the thing is an actual _cat_ , and not some escaped zoo exhibit. ‘Wild Jack’, as Faraday had christened him, is a thirty pound monster, with bright orange, fluffy hair that makes him look even bigger. He’s missing an eye, and half of an ear too. He’s got extra toes on his paws, though. Red’s pretty sure cats aren’t supposed to have thumbs.

Faraday had brought him home one day, saying the thing had been lurking around the bank for a few days. Faraday being Faraday, he’d apparently felt sorry for it, and had been sharing his lunch with it, until that day, when it was raining, and Faraday couldn’t bear leaving it out to suffer. To Faraday’s credit, he’d thought to to take it to a vet first, for a flea bath and whatever other shit went along with that kind of thing, and the vet had been nice enough to send Faraday home with the basics for cat care. 

Red had been ready to veto the whole thing, and had assumed Vasquez would side with him. His dad had some barn cats, true, but they’d been a dog kind of family. But Vasquez had bought into the beast’s sob story, and honestly, Red can admit to the same kind of empathy with the cat. 

But he still doesn’t like the stupid fucking cat. It’s shredded more than one of Red’s packs of cigarettes, and torn up his favorite tee shirt. 

The cat is still looking at him, so he twangs a chord loud enough the monster recoils, and jumps off the coffee table. It goes right to Faraday, curling around his legs, until Faraday picks him up, settling the cat on his shoulder, like a parrot. Anybody else would be struggling, but Faraday, like his stupid cat, is too damn big for his own good. 

“I just don’t want him to feel locked up,” Faraday is saying to Vasquez, Vasquez having pulled the laptop over to show Faraday the enclosures he’s apparently talking about. 

“It’s not like we use most of the backyard,” Vasquez says. “And this way, I can finally plan out the benching around the fire pit. Wild Jack can be out there with us now, without getting his tail in the fire. I think I can put in a sandbox for him too, so he can dig.” He looks over at Red. “Any objections, _mijo_?”

Red shrugs. He pretty much only uses the patio so he can smoke. He doesn’t give a fuck what they do with rest of their tiny yard. 

Over the weekend, Vasquez gets started on the thing, Faraday helping. The stupid cat attacks the chicken wire rolled up on the patio, but it keeps it busy and out of Red’s stuff, which is all he’s asking for, really. 

Saturday night though, after the other two get cleaned up, they head to the bar they’re booked at, Billy and Goody meeting them there. It’s only a short set, a couple of bands booked for the night. Red’s up front for one song, but Billy’s got one too, so it’s not too bad. 

As soon as they’re done and the truck is loaded back up, the rest of them head back inside. Red lingers though, sitting on the tail of the truck and smoking a cigarette. He doesn’t feel like socializing, not really. 

But he’d promised Vasquez, so he finishes up and joins them. 

“ _Mijo!_ ,” Vasquez calls, and Red falls under his arm, lets himself be led over to a group of people. Faraday is in the middle of them, telling some story he’d probably made up half of, but it’s got everyone laughing. 

When Faraday spots Red and Vasquez, he announces them, and Red could kill him. He’s never liked how people in bars looks at him, men and women both. And there’s too many of them, too close, too _friendly_. 

He manages to make it through two introductions from Vasquez and Faraday, but after the second one actually touches Red’s tattoos, and says, “Cool, man, retro outlaw style, right?” Red’s out of patience. He backs away, holding up his pack to Vasquez, and pushes into the crowd. 

Down the hall towards where the supply closets are, Red finds the side door with the broken fire alarm, slipping out onto the iron fire escape, getting his cigarettes out. He stops when he sees he's not alone.

“Hey.” It's Teddy. “Sorry, am I in your hiding spot?” Red shrugs, and offers his pack to Teddy, but he shakes his head. “No, I don't smoke.”

Red fiddles with his lighter. “You mind?” He doesn't usually give a fuck, isn't sure why he does now. But he's asked, so now he's stuck waiting for an answer.

“No,” Teddy says, shaking his head. “I'm used to it. Besides, I'm in your spot anyway.”

It's not like Red owns the staircase. “Not many people know it's here.” The club employees use it to smoke, he knows, which is why the fire alarm has never been fixed, probably.

“I can usually find the good hiding spots anywhere,” Teddy says, tucking his hair behind his ears. He’s wearing Red’s garage hoodie still, Red notices. “I'm really good at it when I'm hiding from Emma. Desperation, and all. And I was definitely desperate ten minutes ago.” Red turns, raises his eyebrows, asking. When Teddy works it out, he blinks a little, but then continues, tucking his hair behind his ears again. “Emma keeps trying to set me up, only she does it without asking me. And I fall for it, every time. So tonight she asked if I wanted to see some music, and me, being an idiot, agreed. Only I got here, and instead of just Emma and Matthew, they were here, and another guy.” He gets a bit cagey after he says that, but it's not like Red couldn't tell.

“Don't like him?” he prompts, for whatever reason.

“He keeps talking about football. I guess he played in college. I don't know anything about football. I don't actually want to know anything about football.” He catches Red's look. “What?”

“Didn't you say you were from Texas?”

“We don't all like football and shoot guns and...whatever is it people think Texans do.” Red takes a hit off his cigarette, watches Teddy a little more. “We don't. Or at least, I don't.” He tucks his hair behind his ears again. Nervous tell, Red thinks, then thinks he's been spending too much time around Faraday.

“What do you do, then?” he asks. Teddy looks back up at him. “When you're not at the rodeo?”

This time, Teddy laughs, leaning against the railing again. “Photography. I like taking pictures.” Red raises his eyebrows at him, so Teddy keeps going. “I got into it when I was in high school. The community center near my group home had free classes on it, so I...” He shrugs. “It was something to do, and I liked it. But it's also why I get roped into whatever Emma is on a crusade about. She knows I'm too scared of her to say no, or charge her for it.”

“She yelled at Billy,” Red says.

“Yeah, she, uh...once Emma's gotten riled up, nothing can stop her. She's a public defender, you know? Nothing scares her, especially not when she's mad.” He looks up at Red, smiles, and looks back down. “And your friends really made her mad. She was texting me about it. Those were not fun five am texts. Way too many details.”

Red smiles, and takes a hit. “At least she doesn't have to see it all the time.”

“Don't remind me,” Teddy says, hiding his face. “I had to bring Matthew his phone charger one time, and they, um...they were...definitely working towards some public indecency charges. I had to go past them to get to the steps.” He keeps talking, but it's funny, so Red keeps listening. “I kind of tried to be loud? So they knew I was there? And then your friend? Billy? He actually looked at me and told me to go away.”

Sounds about right. “Yeah, Billy doesn't give a fuck.”

“Trust me, I worked that one out,” Teddy says, laughing at his feet. “He's a little scary, your friend?” That's an understatement, and when Red looks at Teddy, he squirms a bit. “Okay, he's a lot scary.” When Red keeps looking at him, he squirms some more, but he's smiling. “Alright, now _you_ look scary.”

“I'm not.” That's maybe not true, but he looks up at Red again. “What do you take pictures of?”

“Oh! Um...anything, really? I like to go to the street fairs, and the park. Seeing people just...being people? Doing stuff? I like it here, actually. There's more...” He waves his hand. “There's a lot going on, you know? I actually like the clubs here? But people get nervous if you take photos in the clubs here. I go to the outdoor festivals. People don't mind there. I always try to ask, though.”

“And they let you?” Red would sooner knock out his own teeth, but when Teddy sort of shrugs and smiles again, he kind of gets it. “What do you do with them? The photos?”

“Nothing, really. It's more the process of it? The developing and all that? I keep the good ones, not that they really end up anywhere but another album most of the time. I like it, though, in any case. I know, it's dumb, I'm a nerd...” He looks away again. “I've heard it before.”

“You like it,” Red says, hitching his shoulder. It’s not like he has room to judge. “I play guitar in a bar band.”

“Yeah, but you're actually good.” Again, he messes with his hair. “I caught the end of your show tonight. You're really good. At singing, too. How come you're not up front all the time?”

Red shrugs. “I don't want to be. Vasquez and Faraday love it. Billy and me are good with hanging back.”

“But Billy was up front, for a song?”

“Goody was watching.” Faraday is an idiot, but even Red can admit he can appreciate how he knows how to manipulate people. “Billy agrees to shit when it'll impress Goody.”

He laughs again. “Fair enough. I'd be pretty impressed too, if I had a boyfriend who'd sing for me on stage. That's sweet, though, in any case. That he'll do that for him.”

“Again, you don't have to watch them together.” He leans back against the railing, beside Teddy. “Bad enough I have to live with Vasquez and Faraday.” His cigarette is almost done, so he drops and stubs it out, not sure if he wants another. “I hate having roommates.”

“I wouldn't know any different. I've never lived alone. But I've got three roommates, so I think I've got you beat. And mine don't stay out of my room, but I bet yours do.” Red looks at him, asking. “You can talk all you want, but you're a little intimidating. Me, on the other hand...” Red chooses not to answer that prompting, but he does catch himself smiling. “I know, I know. Trust me, I know. It's fine. I'm used to it. And my job has definitely reinforced it for me. One time, back in Austin, I got called to the scene of a fight in a bar parking lot, and when I was putting one guy in cuffs, he told me I was the cutest twink he’d ever seen, and I was free to cuff him any time.” 

Red actually laughs, surprising himself, but he can actually see it in his head. Teddy doesn’t seem to mind him laughing, looking down at his feet and touching his hair again.

He decides he wants another cigarette, but when he tries to light it, the lighter just clicks. He shakes it, and sees it's mostly run out. Shit.

“Oh, here,” Teddy is holding out something to him. It's a novelty lighter, shaped like a camera. Red looks at him, and he shrugs. “I thought it was funny. And sometimes you need a lighter, even when you don't smoke.” Red can't argue with that, and it gets the job done. He passes it back, and Teddy tucks it back into his pocket. “Mostly Emma uses it. She keeps telling Matthew she's going to quit, but...”

“Yeah, I know that story.” Faraday keeps saying he's going to quit, but mostly he just steals Vasquez's and Red's cigarettes. “You could just stop enabling her.”

“You haven't seen Emma without a cigarette after a bad case. Enabling her is the lesser sin.” He messes with the strings of the hoodie now. “So why are you hiding?”

Red shrugs. “Same as you. The idiots have gotten it into their heads I need to get laid.”

“Bet you any girl in there would be happy to help.”

Red exhales, watches the smoke blow up. “Not my thing.”

“Oh. Um...well, same for any guy, I would think.”

“I don't like talking to people.” He especially doesn't like talking to anyone Vasquez and Faraday think he'll like. He knows, really, that they probably are trying to help, but it’s not like either of them know what the fuck they’re doing with their own lives. Why the hell would they know how to help Red?

Teddy doesn't say anything for a good second, and then he stands up straight, away from the railing. “I better go back. Sorry for stealing your spot.”

_Shit_ , that came out wrong. “I didn't mean you.” He doesn't irritate Red like the people Vasquez and Faraday keep trying to get him to talk to. “Unless you want to go back and listen to some has-been.”

“Pretty sure he's a never-was,” Teddy says, after a second, quiet, but Red huffs at it. Teddy laughs too, but then says, “Sorry, that was kind of mean. He's nice, he is. Just...he hasn't even asked me one question. He just keeps talking at me.” He shrugs. “I don't like that. Emma says he's just trying to impress me, but it's not like football stories are going to do that. I don't even know what a corner-back _is_. Do you?”

Red shakes his head. “We watched soccer in my house.” Well, Vasquez watched soccer, taking every chance he had to tell Red and Jack that it was real football, and swearing in Spanish at the screen a lot. Red had never really understood what was going on, but his dad had liked having sports to bond over with Vasquez, and Red had liked watching them both get way too worked up over it. “Dad put me in boxing when I was ten.” He'd thought it was a good way to teach Red discipline. He'd been right.

“Oh? How'd you end up playing guitar?”

“Vasquez.” Red will never admit it out loud, but he'd liked having an older brother, and he'd spent a lot of time wanting to do things Vasquez was doing, just because. Vasquez hadn't minded teaching him, and when it turned out Red was pretty good at it, he'd stuck with it. “You?”

“Me?” Teddy laughs, looking down, his hands in the hoodie pocket. Red’s close enough he notices Teddy must have washed it, more than once. Red’s given up trying to get the garage smell out of his clothes, can’t even really smell it anymore, honestly. “No. I can't even read music. I'm not tone-deaf, but it's not like there was anyone to get me lessons or anything. The group home wasn't bad, but they liked the bare minimum approach to us. As long as they didn't see any drugs and we weren't getting arrested, that was pretty much it.”

Red takes a hit, considers whether or not he should ask, but since he's said _group home_ twice now, Teddy doesn't seem too hung up on it. “How long were you in the system?”

The hair thing. “Since I was eight. My parents died in a car crash, and there wasn't any other family.”

“Went in when I was six.” He's surprised he even says it, but he figures Teddy won't make a thing of it.

“So, your dad?”

“Adopted. When I was eleven.”

“Really?” Red looks at him. “I remember when I first went in, all the other kids told me not to even hope. Older kids almost never get adopted. I'm the rule, I guess.” He smiles up at Red, surprising him. “It's good though. Hearing the exceptions? Your dad is a good guy, then?” Red nods, because his dad is, if nothing else, a good man. “I'm glad. That you got adopted. I didn’t, but then I met Emma in college, and I didn’t really get much of a choice in the matter.”

Red taps his cigarette against the railing to knock off some stubborn ash, then takes another hit. 

“How can you stand it out here in just a tee shirt?” Teddy asks. 

“Afghanistan was colder,” Red explains. “Did a few tours,” he clarifies, when Teddy frowns. “Out now.” 

He’s surprised that he can’t keep back a smile, when Teddy quietly says, “The mohawk kind of gave that away.” Teddy tilts his head at Red. “Not to mention the ears.” He means Red’s gauges. He’s got the plain black plugs in tonight, but they’re still pretty obvious. 

“Got a stereotype to live up to,” Red teases, again surprising himself when he keeps talking. “Faraday’s the drunk, Vasquez is the flirt, and Billy’s the mystery. I round it out.”

“By being the emo kid who never grew out of it?” Teddy asks, actually getting Red to laugh again. “If it makes you feel better, I finally ordered a new hoodie, but since Emma wasn’t around to stop me, I gave in and got myself an AFI one.” When Red raises his eyebrows, asking, Teddy, answers the unasked question. “ _Decemberunderground_. Came out my junior year. I actually wore that CD out.” 

AFI is criminally underrated, but Red can’t agree with the choice. “Earlier stuff was better.” 

“Let me guess, you’re a big fan of _Answer That and Stay Fashionable_?” Red’s impressed enough that Teddy can call him out that he just shrugs. “You ever see them live?” 

“Once, when I was stationed in Maryland.” Not that he had gotten to spend that much time in Maryland. It felt like no sooner had he gotten there, he’d been back on the plane to Afghanistan. “You?”

“Yeah,” Teddy says. “One of the first birthdays I ever celebrated since I went into the system. Emma was pulling double-time as a tutor, and it turned out she was doing it to buy us tickets and merch. Loved every second of it. I still have the t-shirt, actually.”

It makes Red think of Christmas when he was twelve, and Vasquez giving him his first guitar. 

A phone buzzes, and Teddy pulls his cell phone out of the hoodie pocket. “Oh no,” he says, and Red can guess enough he smiles, huffing when Teddy holds the phone out so Red can see. 

_I swear to gawd, Teddy, you better have been kidnapped! If I find out you’re off hiding somewhere, you’re in for it!_ Another text follows up quick, confusing Red. _Matthew got that rewards program for the movies, Teddy. Either get your ass back to this table or I’m going to suddenly have a lot of overtime, and you’ll be going with him!_

He looks up at Teddy, raising his eyebrows. 

“Matthew is Emma’s husband, I think I told you? He has really bad taste in movies.” Teddy reaches up, pushing his hair behind both ears before sticking his hands back in the hoodie pocket. “Not that Emma and me can brag. Every straight-to-DVD, D-grade, stupid schlock? Me and Emma have probably watched it more than once.” Red frowns, confused. “Did you know there’s a horror movie where a serial killer gets reborn as a snowman?”

Red can admit he needs a minute, but he does look back at Teddy, questioning. 

Teddy just shakes his head. “It’s one of those things where it’s so stupid, you don’t even know.” He pushes off the railing, standing straight. “I better head back. I don’t know if Tom Cruise has any movies coming out this year, and I don’t want to get punished with finding out.” 

He goes back in, and Red realizes he’s probably spent too long out here too, so he puts the last of the cigarette out and goes to find everyone else. He doesn’t see Teddy, not that he’s looking, but it’s easy enough to find the table the rest of the band has claimed. Vasquez and Faraday’s admirers have dispersed, probably once they worked out they weren’t actually going to get anywhere, and now the two of them are playing Quarters with Billy. 

“Guessing you were not taken in by your adoring public,” Goody drawls, just to him. Red shakes his head, his good mood wavering now. “One young man was particularly persistent in his pursuit.” Only Goody could say that without stuttering, Red thinks. “Tried to make some more inquiries. But I’m thinking if you were interested, you’d of done something about that yourself.” When Red gives him a look, Goody swirls his whiskey and shrugs. “I don’t even have your number, so I couldn’t have helped him anyway.” 

Red holds out his hand, and Goody hands his phone over. At this point, Red is pretty sure Goody is a permanent fixture in Billy’s life, and considering how much trouble the other three manage to get in, Goody might need to get in contact with Red at some point. 

The band on stage doesn’t suck, and since no one is bothering Red now, he sits and listens to the music and the game still going on, rolling his eyes when Billy offers his quarter for Goody to blow on for luck. But after Goody does it, he looks up and says, “Look at that, Ms. Emma is here.” 

People have cleared just enough that when Red looks up, he can see them. Crazy Bitch is sitting beside the guy that Red is pretty sure is her husband, with Teddy on the other side, some other guy beside him, getting close to Teddy. Even across the room, Red can catch the look on Teddy’s face. Guy hasn’t stopped talking about his went-nowhere football career then, probably. 

Faraday is nudging Vasquez. “Vas, man, look. She’s got that guy with her. Usual twenty bucks?” Red rolls his eyes. The two of them like to bet on who can get a number first. 

“Hard pass, _gringo_ ,” Vasquez says, shaking his head. “I like my dick where it is, and I get the feeling _mami_ there ain’t going to lose no sleep cutting it off if we fuck around with him.” 

“Eh, she like, comes up to here on us,” Faraday argues, holding his hand up to around his collarbone. 

Red eyes him, then takes a drag of his beer. “She’s a public defense lawyer in Baton Rouge. Pretty sure she could eat you alive.” He says it just to do it, he thinks. Maybe. 

“See,” Vasquez says, pointing at Red but looking at Faraday. “We don’t need no lawyers coming after us. I’m still on probation, remember?” He looks at Red now. “So, what, you didn’t see anybody you liked? Thought maybe Rob was your type.” Red doesn’t even remember which one that was was, and he doesn’t care. “Seriously, no one?”

He can still see Teddy’s table, which means he sees Teddy standing up to leave, Crazy Bitch and her husband following. 

Beside him, Goody quietly says, “Looks to me like maybe someone did in fact strike your fancy.” Red gives him a look. “Ms. Emma’s friend doesn’t look too pleased with his present company.” He eyes Red, just a little. “What were you doing, off on your own for so long?”

“Why?” 

“Just curious,” Goody replies easily. “You know us Southern folks are always curious.” 

Red doesn’t say anything else, and Goody lets the subject lie. 

A week goes by. Red goes to therapy. Rodriguez doesn’t press Red about seeing him privately again, but Red does catch him looking like he might, once the session is over. He doesn’t though, and Red takes it as a small mercy. Him and Vasquez have their weekly Skype session with Jack, and neither of them raise the subject either. 

His dad sends them a care package though; a few new beanies, probably knitted by the neighbor, Ms. Ellis, some of the good jam and honey from the orchard down the street from the house, and a tin of Mexican hot chocolate for Vasquez. 

Red wears the beanies, because his dad and Vasquez are both convinced Red’s going to catch a cold and die, or something. 

One night, when they’re all at Billy and Goody’s, Red steps out to smoke on the staircase, watching the parking lot idly, when he hears voices below, people laughing. 

It’s Teddy and the Crazy Bitch, he realizes, when Teddy says, “That is not how a morgue works, and you know it, Emma!”

“It’s called _suspension of disbelief_ ,” she replies. 

“Okay, suspension of disbelief only goes so far,” Teddy says to her. They’re both a little too hyped up. Maybe they’re drunk again. “Why wouldn’t they notice the body is healing?”

“Whatever, that actress sold the whole possessed body thing.” 

“That’s because she’s probably a contortionist, so that doesn’t count. And what kind of morgue would have motion-sensor lighting? That’s a work hazard in a morgue. There are sharp tools. Bio-hazards. Not to mention all the security protocols morgues have because of...ugh...” 

Red’s actually curious, so he’s glad when the Crazy Bitch asks, “Oh my god, Teddy, what happened? What aren’t you telling me?” He hears her laugh, and demand, “Oh no, I know that face! Tell me!”

“It wasn’t even my case, don’t make me say it.” 

He can admit he’s pretty damn interested, so he likes that the Crazy Bitch persists, prodding and insisting, until Teddy breaks. 

“There was a morgue here recently that had to have their locks updated, because it turned out this local had been breaking in and....” There’s a pause, but Red’s already worked it out. He’s been to war. He knows there are some really fucked up people in the world plenty well. But still, hearing: “The poor tech walked in on him with one of the corpses. She had to testify in court and everything. There’s this whole thing going around now, making sure everyone has the new ID locks,” even has him trying to hide a laugh, because, _fuck_ , some people. 

“Okay, people like that deserve to try and fuck a demon-possessed corpse,” Crazy Bitch says, and Red laughs to himself, agreeing. But then she says, “Teddy, why are you still wearing this damn hoodie? You’re a grown man, go to Target and get yourself a new one.” That kind of annoys Red. He has five or six of them, and handing that one over hadn’t really meant anything, but still. It’s not like it was in bad shape, or anything. 

It kind of surprises him when Teddy defends the thing, though. “It’s a good hoodie. And it was really nice of him. Especially after the way you’ve cussed them all out.” 

“Don’t you side against me,” she chides him. “And they deserved it.”

“What did he do?” Teddy asks, not sounding like a question. “And don’t even, you like Goody now.” 

“Whatever,” she says, right as Red realizes his pack is empty, and heads downstairs to get a new one out of the truck. 

When he gets down to the second landing, he knows for sure they’re drunk. Crazy Bitch is a redhead, and she’s red in the face now too, and Teddy’s a little flushed himself under the bad outdoor lighting. 

“Hey,” Teddy says to him, turning and leaning against the railing. “Sorry, were we loud?”

“I actually live here,” Crazy Bitch points out. 

Red shakes his head, and holds up his empty cigarettes, the pack crushed now. The woman actually holds out her own pack to him, Marlboro Reds, so Red accepts the gesture, taking one and lighting it. 

“Give me a minute, I need to pee,” she says to Teddy, and goes back inside. 

He doesn’t usually smoke Reds anymore, the joke having worn out back in the Marines, but he doesn’t hate them, so it does the trick. When he looks up at Teddy, he sees he’s holding her pack, sticking it in the hoodie pocket and hiding a smile, so Red says, “Don’t say it.”

“Weak pun, even for me,” Teddy says, holding both hands up in surrender. “So, I was wondering, actually. Is your name really Red, or is it a nickname?” 

He’s talked to Teddy enough times that he’s not worried about his reaction anymore, so he says, “My name is Red Harvest.” He shrugs. “My mother’s family was traditional.” It’s more than he needed to say, but he’s said it.

“I, um…” Teddy shrugs. “I thought you might be, but I wasn’t sure.”

It’s too easy. “Might be what?” he prompts, and gets the exact reaction he thought he might get out of Teddy. 

“I didn’t mean -, ...I was curious, but not like, in a _weird_ way, or anything…” He looks away. 

Red walks over, and leans against the railing beside him. “I’m just fucking with you,” Red admits. 

It gets Teddy to snort, looking down at his feet. “A time-honored tradition,” he says quietly, but doesn’t sound upset about it. “That’s not really fair. I’m too easy.” Before Red can say what’s thinking, Teddy looks up at him, and says, “ _Don’t_ ,” so Red drops it. “My boss, Captain Chisolm, says I’m the easiest mark he’s ever seen in a uniform.” 

“Sam Chisolm?” Red’s not fond of cops, for a lot of damn good reasons, but he’s met Goody’s...whatever Sam is to Goody, a couple of times now, and doesn’t hate him. And for whatever reason, Teddy isn’t setting off his warning bells like most cops do either. 

Maybe because he’s gay, or something. 

“You know him?” 

Red shrugs. “His ex-wife was Goody’s nanny. They’re close. He comes around.” He had plenty to say about Red’s truck last time too. Something about his tinting and _street-legal_. Red’s got it just shy of too dark though, and he knows it, so Sam can mind his own business as far as Red is concerned. 

“He’s who she was looking for?” That’s an interesting tone, so Red looks at him again, asking silently. “She came into the precinct shouting at everyone until Sam came out. I’m Jewish, and I swear that woman put the fear of Jesus in me. Me and Hernandez just started hiding with everyone else whenever she showed up.”

He can believe that; Red’s not scared of much, but Goody’s old nanny might come close to doing it. Even Faraday calls her _ma’am_. 

“Glad it ended well, at least,” Teddy says. “She seemed real worried.” 

Red almost says something about how Rebecca Chisolm seems to believe Goody is her son, but he takes it back in his own head almost immediately. He’s got no room judging found families, and doesn’t really want to. People like to think they can judge his more often than they should. 

“Weather’s been nice,” Teddy comments, looking out over the parking lot. He’s right; it has been easy for the past couple of days. “Can’t say I’ve been enjoying all the rain.”

“You get used to it,” Red replies. “Better than Afghanistan.” 

“Pretty sure anywhere people aren’t actively shooting at you is better.”

Red shrugs. “Meant the snow. Hated the fucking snow.” He’d seen snow before, but never like over there. 

Teddy laughs, and it gets Red to smile, for some reason. “You know what, that’s a good point. Can’t say I’d be too fond of it either.” He leans, elbows on the railings, and looks up at Red. “That how you learned to be a mechanic? Being in the military?” 

“My dad,” Red corrects him. While Vasquez had ended up picking up carpentry, Red had always liked the cars his dad worked on. It was usually the neighbors’ cars, most of them not willing to put up with the one garage in town, and the asshole that ran it, when his dad, and later Red too, would do it cheaper. But his dad owned enough land, and had two barns, and sometimes they’d just been pet projects, junkers his dad taught him how to get running again. Vasquez and Jack had soccer and cooking, and Red had had cars and hunting with Jack. 

They’d all liked the guns. 

“Sounds nice,” Teddy says, and Red remembers him talking about the group home. The most he probably learned in there was how to not be seen or heard. “And useful. I spent all my spare time at the movies. About all I learned was to stay away from the back row, and the front row. Middle is best.” It’s a weird thing to say, so Red looks at him, raising his eyebrows, and Teddy explains. “The perverts sit in the back. The stoners sit in the front. Steps are a little too complicated for them.” 

“Not always,” Red says, because he kind of guessed what Teddy would do next.

He’s right; Teddy covers his ears, and says, “I’m a police officer, and I did not hear that.” 

“Teddy!” They both look at the door, where Crazy Bitch is standing. “Movie time! Matthew finally proved his worth and got the laptop hooked up to the TV!” Red hears some kind of grumbling from inside the apartment, and the woman looks over her shoulder. “Did I mention me and Teddy both love you?”

This time he hears the, “Sure you do,” and spots a man walking around behind her. 

The woman goes back inside, leaving the door open, and Teddy stands up straight, looking at his feet. “Better go in. Unless you want to watch a what looks to be a very bad horror movie about Baba Yaga?” Red raises his eyebrows, but he almost says yes. Teddy’s kind of funny, and Red’s always kind of liked horror movies. 

But he shakes his head. 

“Don’t blame you,” Teddy says, but he turns at the door and says, “See you,” before shutting it. 

Red gets another pack of cigarettes out of his truck, but doesn’t go back up. It’s quiet in the parking lot. Up on the second floor, the balcony door is open, the screen door shut. There’s light from a TV spilling out, and if he concentrates, he can hear typical horror movie chords. 

He smirks around his cigarette when he hears a man shout, and someone laughing. Maybe he should have taken Teddy up on that offer. 

Instead, he finishes his cigarette in peace, and heads back upstairs to the third floor. 

“Where the fuck did you go?” Billy asks him, when Red comes out onto the balcony where him and Goody are. Faraday and Vasquez are busy fighting over some MMA match on TV, and while usually Red would be interested in that, one of the guys has his head spray colored with the Irish flag, which means he’s either an idiot or a douchebag. He doesn’t feel like finding out. 

Red holds up his new pack in answer.

“Did you have to go to the bodega?” Goody asks, exhaling a smoke ring. “Wish you’d have said something, would have asked you to grab us some creamer.” 

“Neighbors were out,” Red explains. “Crazy Bitch downstairs. Got to talking.” 

Billy huffs, but Goody looks at Red, grinning, slow and easy. “Just Miss Emma, or her friend, too?” 

When Red doesn’t say anything, because he actually doesn’t know what to say, Billy looks at Goody, then Red, and curses. “He’s a _cop_ ,” he reminds Red. “Even if he is an overgrown twink.” 

“Thank you kindly, Sam is also an officer of the law,” Goody chides, but it’s mild. Probably more a defense of Sam. Goody doesn’t seem to like cops in general any more than the rest of them. “In fact, seems Teddy Q. down there is one of his. He’s mentioned him a time or two, I just hadn’t put it together ‘til here recently.” He blows another smoke ring. “He’s new in town. Odds are in your favor that he’s available. And I don’t see many men turning you down, truth be told.” 

“He never offers,” Billy drawls. 

Red doesn’t have anything to say to that either. Truth be told, he can’t actually remember the last time he’d gotten laid. Not since he got out of Marines, at the very least. Hasn’t been all that interested. Talking to people took too much effort. 

And if one more fucking moron in a bar tries to touch his tattoos, or asks him a stupid question about his _heritage_ , he’s going to end up with an assault charge. 

“Should I be jealous?” Billy is asking Goody. 

“Man can window-shop, can’t he?” Goody teases, winking at Red. “Speaking of, don’t think you’re getting out of looking for a couch tomorrow.” 

“I told you, Goody, I _don’t care_.” 

“Darling, I don’t want to pick out something you can’t sleep on,” Goody refutes. “Ain’t neither of us all that picky, won’t take more than an hour. Just want to switch to something microfiber. Easier to clean, and it won’t smell like smoke after a week.”

It’s very sickeningly domestic. The couch at his apartment had come out of the den back home, after his dad had converted it into an office/consulting room for the baking business. So did Red’s armchair. He’s pretty sure if that hadn’t been the case, it would have been something they found for free on Craigslist. 

That had been one of the easier parts of about being in the Marines. Everything was picked out and provided by someone else. All Red had to contribute to his barracks room was a Sisters of Mercy poster, his guitar, and a Comanche Nation flag. His roommate had objected to that one. Unfortunately, his argument had been _“Ain’t American, man,”_ but all Red had to do was look at him for a really long minute before he’d worked out just how stupid he sounded. 

He really doesn’t miss most of the people he’d served with. Weirdly enough, he’d usually gotten along better with the women. They’d felt safe with him once they’d worked it out, and they had usually left him the hell alone when they were all sitting around. 

Later, in his own room, back at the apartment, the same Comanche Nation flag is hanging on the wall, beside the window. He has a USMC one too, but it’s still neatly folded in the nightstand drawer. He’d tried hanging it too, on the other side of the window, but looking at it bothered him sometimes. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, see it, and he’d forget where he was. 

Red doesn’t like not being in control. He can’t afford it. He won’t risk getting confused, and maybe hurting Vasquez or Faraday. Because he could. He could really easily hurt them. 

He sits up, and opens the drawer, pulling out his tags. They’re his original set. He rubs his thumb over the raised letters of his name, then drops them back in the drawer. 

It’s one in the morning, but he doesn’t think he should sleep. Not right now.

He gets out of bed and heads out to the patio, lighting a cigarette once he’s outside. 

Faraday’s sitting in one of the chairs, not smoking, his hands folded across his stomach. “Alright, there, man?” 

Red shrugs, but hitches his chin at Faraday, asking the same. 

“Nah,” Faraday says. “Don’t know what set me off, but I keep waking up over there. Gave up for now.” Red can understand that. The last time Faraday had a bad night, Red had gotten up too, worried over the sound. He’d found Faraday sitting on the floor by his bed, crying, the bedside lamp knocked over on the floor. “Ain’t even the IED. Ain’t nothing, not really. I’m just back in the tent.” 

“Those suck,” Red admits. They do. The space between sleep and waking, and swearing he can feel the cot under him, hear other people moving in the tent. The smell of it. The _fear_ , part of his mind screaming that he’s not there anymore, it’s over, while the rest of him, including his own body, tell him differently. 

Over there, and not here in Baton Rouge. Over there, where he’d have to wake up soon, get his gear on, head out. Another day, another IED, another trip wire, another bullet with his name on it. 

He sits down in the chair beside Faraday, and offers him a cigarette from his pack. Faraday takes it, and the lighter when Red offers. 

“You ever go see the camels?” Faraday asks, suddenly. 

He’d been talked into it by the women he usually hung around; Collins, Alvarez, and Byrd. They’d wanted to go see the baby camels, but they hadn’t wanted to go alone. Wasn’t always safe. So Red had gone, riding in the bed of the old pick-up truck the camel-guy had shown up with. The women had made fun of him for his AFI tee. 

The camels had been mostly babies; _calves_. Big dark eyes and long eyelashes, eager to get their heads scratched. The women had loved them. 

But Red had been interested in one of the adults, off in another pen. It’s hair had been shaved into a pattern. It had reminded Red of some old pictures in a book his dad had gotten him on Comanche history, pictures of painted horses and the warriors that had ridden them. 

“They smelled,” he says. They had. 

“Yeah, but they were cute,” Faraday replies. “Doesn’t make any damn sense, but I miss it sometimes. Least when I was in the Army, had someone telling me what I was supposed to be doing. Don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing now.” 

Red can relate. But it’s not going to do either of them any good to go down that road. The past is over. So he says, “Getting us gigs.” 

Faraday huffs. “Yeah, guess I’m pretty good at that.” He takes a hit, and exhales through his nose. “Not looking to worry Vas. You know he fusses when he thinks we’re getting crazy.” Red nods. This conversation, like a couple others between just them stays right here. “Hey,” he looks up and sees Faraday offering his fist. When Red meets him, Faraday says, “ _Hooah_ ,” quietly. 

“ _Oorah_ ,” Red replies. 

They sit quietly for awhile, maybe an hour or two, Faraday not asking for another cigarette, until Faraday goes back inside. He puts his hand on Red’s shoulder first though, squeezes. “We ain’t there, no more.” Red doesn’t say anything, but when Faraday lets go, he doesn’t just leave. He bends over, half-hugging Red, and knocks their heads together. “Get some sleep, brother.”

Red nods, and taps Faraday’s arm twice in acknowledgment, Faraday letting go after another squeeze. 

He goes to therapy. He thinks about the chords to _Miss Murder_ for most of it. When they break though, he doesn’t manage to escape Rodriguez. 

“Looked like you were somewhere else the whole time, Red.” He looks worried, like he actually cares about Red. Fuck, he probably does. Rodriguez does this job for a reason. “Something on your mind?” 

It’s probably easier to answer. “AFI.”

“The band?” Rodriguez asks, starting to grin. “Damn, I haven’t thought about them in years. Couldn’t get away from them for a minute there, though. What brought them up?”

Red shrugs. “Talking about them with someone.”

“Yeah?” Rodriguez nudges him. “She cute?”

“Him,” Red corrects, without thinking about it. 

It catches Rodriguez off guard long enough Red makes an attempt to leave, but Rodriguez calls after him, getting him to stop. “Hey,” he says, keeping his distance. “Keep talking to him. I think it’ll do you some good. You looked a little less pissed off today.” But he still adds, “Door is still open, Red.” 

Red pulls his beanie on, and leaves. 

It’s getting cold out. When he gets in the truck, he scrolls through his music until he lands on the _Decemberunderground_ album. _Prelude 12/21_ starts, and he sits back in his seat, lighting a cigarette and listening. He’d always liked their older stuff better, always will, but the sound of the piano takes him back to being eighteen still, climbing out his window to sit on the roof with his iPod, watching the stars and trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life. 

He had already known back then that he didn’t want to go to college. It’s not like his dad would have minded; Vas hadn’t gone to college either, and had been doing just fine as a carpenter, along with construction work. 

The recruiter had offered what had looked like the easiest answer. 

Red exhales smoke, the song ending. _Kill Caustic_ starts up. 

He was a dumb eighteen-year-old. Jack had been angrier than Red had ever seen him, and Vasquez had barely said two words to him for about a week. They’d both been right, but Red hadn’t wanted to listen back then.

Well, he’s paying for it now, isn’t he?

If Faraday has any more bad nights over the next week, he stays in his room for them. Red sits on the patio, the cool nights and the sound of the neighborhood keeping his head clear of sand and sun. 

One night, Vasquez actually joins him, lighting a cigarillo when he steps out. “Anything I need to worry about, _mijo_?” he asks, leaning against the sliding door. 

Red shakes his head. 

“You lying to me?”

For that, Red just shrugs. He’s not sure. 

“ _Rojo_ ,” he says, his own nickname for Red, one that rarely comes out anymore. “I know it’s like when I ask Josh; I wasn’t there. I don’t know what it was like. But you know I can listen. You and me, we could always talk about anything. But ever since you got back, you don’t talk to no one anymore. It ain’t good for you. And after what happened -”

“Don’t,” Red orders. 

“ _Rojo_ , I ain’t saying dating is going to fix anything, but I think getting out, talking to people -”

“Maybe I am.” He doesn’t mean to say it. But he does. “Talking to someone. I don’t tell you everything.” 

Vasquez doesn’t say anything for a good long while, the pair of them smoking in silence. But finally, his brother says, “Red, I don’t care who you’re talking to, or what you’re talking about. _Mijo_ , I just want you to talk.” He thinks Vasquez might change that opinion if he knew just who Red was talking to. Neither of them have been given much good reason to like cops. Plenty of tallies in the opposing column, actually. 

But Sam Chisolm hasn’t been like any cops Red has ever known. And if Teddy’s working for him...fuck, he still can’t quite wrap his head around the idea that _Teddy_ is a cop.

He isn’t even sure _why_ he’s talking to Teddy, of all people. It’s just easier. 

“You got that look on your face,” Vasquez says. When Red glances at him, he says, “You’re overthinking something.” Red snorts. “Don’t even, I know you. Whatever it is, just let it happen, Red. Might end up doing you some good.”

Red isn’t sure he believes that. 

He gets through the rest of the week, until Friday rolls around, and he’s sitting on the couch in the office of the garage, looking at nothing, and ignoring Rosenberg and Jackal arguing about football. 

The door swings open, and Jimmy, one of their bosses, steps in.

“Red,” Jimmy barks. “Jetta, in the third bay.” Red looks at him, but Jimmy shakes his head. “Your turn for the Volkswagen of the week.”

That's probably fair, not that Red likes it. Rosenberg laughs, and Jackal holds up his hands. “Better you than me, Red.” 

When he sees the Jetta, his memory catches on the blue sideview mirror, the rest of the Jetta black. He can't remember why it's familiar though, so he puts it out of his head, popping the hood and getting a look. It's not a good look. The serpentine belt is fucking shredded, and it's taken everything else with it. He doesn't even need to get under the car to see that it's fucking done.

He takes a look, in any case, but it's what he thought. The warping alone has the car good for nothing but parts, and he knows if he gets a look at the transmission, it's going to be the car's death toll. Someone's been fucking with this car, trying to get it up to street, but they didn't know what they were doing. Volkswagens aren't easy to mess with, in any case.

The car is a lost cause, he decides, rolling out from beneath it, and shutting the hood.

Christ, he's going to have to actually talk to the owner.

He goes into the waiting room, holding up the keys. “Black Jetta?”

The head that perks up is Teddy. Shit, that's how Red knows this car.

“Oh, hey. I didn't think it’d be you looking at it,” Teddy says, getting up and walking over to him. “How bad is it?” Red makes a face, not sure how to say it. “That bad? Is it salvageable?” Maybe _for_ salvage. He doesn't have to say anything though, because Teddy says, “Of course not. That's what I get for buying a car from a police auction.”

That explains the mods.

“So no chance? None at all?” Red shakes his head. Fixing it will cost more than the car is worth, and while Red's not usually above letting people toss their money in that particular pit, this is different. “Alright, that's that then. I'll call Triple A, get them to tow it.” The tell with his hair. “Do you know which will be easier for me to get back to work, and then home? Bus or Lyft?”

Neither, from Red’s experience. This is Baton Rouge. Red checks the clock on the wall, and decides to offer: “Wait a minute. I'll give you a ride.”

Teddy shakes his head. “It's fine.”

“It's not a problem,” Red says, shrugging. “It's on my way.”

“Well,” Teddy hesitates, but then he nods. “Thanks. I'd appreciate it.”

When Red heads back into the office, Jimmy and Laurie, the receptionist, are looking at him. “You know that boy?” Jimmy asks. Red shrugs. “Well, it's not like you're any more use to me. Go on, get.” When Red keeps looking at him, he says, “Damn it, boy, you show up early every damn day, so get.”

He washes up in the bathroom, scrubbing the grease and oil off his hands, and from where it's gotten on his neck, stripping out of the sleeves of his jumpsuit and tying it around his waist. He knows damn well he still smells like the garage, but he looks a little more presentable now.

Teddy is still sitting in the waiting room, playing with his phone. When he sees Red, he stands up, slipping his phone into his hoodie pocket. It’s the _Decemberunderground_ hoodie. “Um, Emma says she can send Matthew to get me as soon as she gets a hold of him, so you really don't have to.”

“It's fine.” He nods at the door, and Teddy follows him out to the truck, climbing into the passenger side and putting on his seat belt right away. Red watches. He usually has to make a point of telling people to do it. He’d even put in a middle-seat one in the back for Goody. “Precinct two streets over?” he asks, even though he knows.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, that's the one. Didn't think you'd remember that.” Red shrugs. “I have a tendency to talk a lot, is all. Don't expect anyone to remember everything I say.” He looks at Red. “You don't say much, though, do you?” The truck slows at a light, so Red glances over at him and shakes his head. “I can be quiet, if I'm bothering you.”

“I'd tell you.” The light turns.

Teddy's phone goes off, and he says, “Sorry,” to Red, before answering it. “Emma, it's fine. I got a ride.” He pauses, and Red hears the crazy bitch talking. “No, it is not with a serial killer.” That makes Red smirk, still watching the road. “Yes, I am very sure he is not a serial killer.” He holds the phone away, even though Red can still hear her talking. Red eyes it, then Teddy, but he just shakes his head, and whispers, “Just how she is.” Once she quiets, Teddy holds the phone back to his ear. “Emma, it's fine. The tow truck driver already texted me, they're going to take the car back to my place. I'll figure out what to do then. No, I don't...no, Emma, I'm not falling for that again! You can only get me so many times before I wise up.” She's still talking when Red pulls into the precinct parking lot, Red watching Teddy, trying not to laugh. He looks like he's ready to be shot in the head. “I have to go inside, I'll text you later. Yes, bye.” He hangs up, and rubs his eyes.

“Offer to go see some more music?” Red can't help himself.

“Okay, no, even I learn eventually,” Teddy protests, smiling over at Red. “And after today, I am not in the mood to listen to someone talk at me for three hours while trying to get me drunk. Liable to say something rude.” He looks away from Red, his smile growing. “Or at least think it real loud.” He undoes his seat belt. “I'll just be a minute, just got to grab my stuff.”

After he's gone, it occurs to Red that this is the first time he's ever been in a police precinct parking lot without bail money in hand. Faraday mostly gets thrown in the drunk tank until one of them takes pity on him, usually Vasquez and Goody these days, but Vasquez has been in twice for assault. The one time they'd had to get Billy had been a step up, _aggravated_ assault, though the charges got dropped.

Teddy is back quickly, climbing into the truck with a messenger bag. He settles it at his feet, and puts his seat belt back on. “I don't live far,” he says. “Which is a good thing, considering I'm back to taking the bus. Do you know where the Donahue Orchard neighborhood is?”

Red thinks about it. “Shitty townhouses behind the Greek restaurant front?”

“Please don't confirm that for me,” Teddy says. “Their food is pretty good.”

“Still a front.” Because they are.

“I didn't hear that. The counter girls are really nice, so I didn't hear that.” His phone goes off again, and when he checks it, he sighs. “I wish she would stop. She talked up Baton Rouge's music scene, but I never get to actually listen to any of it.”

“We're playing tonight,” Red offers, after a minute. “At the Black Cat.” He feels Teddy looking at him, so he adds, “You should come.”

“Really?” After a second though, Teddy says, “Wait a minute, isn’t that the club that keeps getting shut down?” Red shrugs. It’s true, but it’s not like he cares. “Hernandez swears the owner must know the governor, or something.”

“He’s his cousin,” Red says. The asshole brags about it enough that even Red hasn’t been able to ignore him. 

Teddy laughs into his hand. “Well, she’ll enjoy being right, at least. But yeah, I’d love to come. What time?” 

“Around seven.” He turns onto the street Teddy says to, and when they stop, he holds out his phone to Teddy. He takes it, frowning at Red, so Red says, “Put your number in. I’ll find you after we’re done.” For some reason,Teddy looks confused, but Red figures it’s because they don’t have the same phone. He gets the number in, then texts himself, to judge from the buzzing in his bag. 

“Thank you for the ride,” Teddy says, opening the door. “And the invitation. I’ll see you.” 

Red waits until he’s inside, then heads back to the apartment, trying not to overthink it. Teddy’s still a cop, even if he actually seems to buy into that ‘protect and serve’ bullshit, and it bothers him, no lie. On the other hand, Teddy doesn’t irritate him, and...

And it’ll probably end up being nothing anyway.

He’s still trying not to overthink it when they’re all sitting in the green room, and his phone goes off. 

“Who’s texting you?” Faraday asks, taking a hit off Vasquez’s cigarette and passing it back. 

“Why do you care?” Red checks it, not looking at Faraday. It’s just one word, _here_ , but despite his own misgivings, he’s happy to see it. Means Teddy decided to come, that he’s out there in the crowd. 

That he came to see Red play.

Faraday is like a fucking dog with the scent though, just like that. “Oh, no, don’t even, why are you _smiling_?” He elbows Vasquez, Red rolling his eyes. “Vas, someone is texting Red, and he’s smiling.”

“Mind your business,” Vasquez cautions, but he does look up at Red. “Made a friend, _hermanito_?” 

“Mind your business,” Red tells him, sneering, and putting his phone away. “Come on, we’re up.”

On stage, he can’t actually see anyone in the crowd, the lights too bright, so he doesn’t bother looking. The club is crowded anyway, payday weekend and too close to Halloween for anyone to care about being hungover. They’ve even got the club decorated for it, fake cobwebs and plastic Jack-o-Lanterns all over the place. 

None of it matters when they start. It’s all about playing, one chord after another. 

They slide into the last song, and when it’s all over, he slips off the stage, Billy right behind him, while the other two enjoy the attention. He shares a look with Billy, but when Billy decides to say, “You’re related to one of them,” he shoves Billy in the shoulder, and gets shoved back for it. 

It escalates, like it always does, and Red’s really wondering what the fuck they teach soldiers in South Korea, because Billy’s got him in a lock he can’t break when Goody appears, lighting a joint. “Billy, let that boy go,” he says, and Billy does. “Why is it anytime I leave any of you alone, you end up brawling like schoolboys?”

Billy shrugs. “It’s fun.” Red shrugs too, nodding. It usually is.

“Whatever gets you through the day, sweetheart.” Goody hooks a finger through Billy’s jeans and pulls him forward. “C’mon then, darling, let me buy you a drink.” 

Red trails after them, getting his phone out to text Teddy and see where he is. It takes a minute, Red already out in the crowd, before Teddy texts back, _left balcony_. 

It’s already getting cold out, so Teddy is pretty much all alone in the corner of the balcony, easy to spot. There are some drunk idiots hanging over the wrought-iron railing closer to the door, smoking and making too much noise, but once Red gets over to Teddy, he can put his back to them and ignore them. 

“Hey,” Teddy says, turning. “I know I said it before, but you’re really good, you know? I mean, you all are.” He’s got his hair tied back, but he still raises his hand like he’s going to touch it. “I got here early, and I caught the end of the first band. They…”

“They suck,” Red says for him, because they do. He doesn’t remember their name, but he knows the drummer is the owner’s nephew. 

“They all looked really young, to be fair,” Teddy replies. “But I guess that’s why they were on so early?” Red shrugs. “Everyone seemed a lot happier when you all came on stage. I was sitting at the bar. You definitely have some _fans_.” That makes Red roll his eyes. He knows exactly who Teddy means. “What, you don’t like being admired?”

“Not by them,” Red manages. He’s never liked the way people look at him, the way they come up to him, touch him. “It’s fucking annoying.”

Teddy laughs, shaking his head. “I’ll take your word for it.” He turns so his hip is against the railing, and he’s facing Red. “The worst I get is people asking me if I do more… _private_? Photos. They usually just want them as a present for their spouse, but my partner wanted them for her Instagram.” Red has no comprehension of that, and it must show, because Teddy explains, “She wants to be a model. Apparently that’s some kind of thing on Instagram now, and you and me are the last ones to know.”

“You could make some money,” Red suggests, not really meaning it. He can see Teddy with a camera, if he thinks about it. But he can’t see him taking photos like that. 

“I’ll pass,” Teddy says. “I mean, it’s all right in the locker rooms or whatever, but I really don’t actually want to look at women...like that.” He hides his face, and even in the dark of the balcony, he’s definitely blushing. “It’s always so weird to me.”

Red shrugs. “I was in the Marines for eight years. Stopped noticing.” Once the women he’d been serving with found out they didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to Red, they’d had no problem stripping down in front of him. He hadn’t cared one way or the other, but there had been a few times, a few situations, where the women had preferred him around to stand guard, in a way, and he hadn’t blamed them. 

The men they’d been worried about had usually taken one look at Red and found somewhere else to be.

“Wait,” Teddy says. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.” He clarifies, when Teddy keeps frowning. “Got a medical discharge two years back.” He raises his eyebrows at Teddy. 

“Oh, me? Same. Emma and me went to school together, I think I told you that? But see, I got some aid for my first four years, so I got my bachelor’s, but after that, I was on my own. Orphans don’t qualify for a lot of loans.” He raises his eyebrows at Red, a shared joke. “Emma’s grandmother raised her up, and she left everything to Emma, so she kept going. Not much you can do with my degree, honestly, and even with aid from the state, I had a lot of debt. And it’s not...the best option...but I could do this. Be a police officer, I mean. It’s union pay, and I could get my debt paid off. And I like helping people.”

In Red’s experience, the cops never do much to help anyone, but he doesn’t want to start a fight with Teddy. “The photography?”

“That’s what I really like,” Teddy says, relaxing. “Drawing, photography. Emma’s always been at me about doing it for real, but there’s not a lot of money in it. Got to question her sometimes. Even when she really doesn’t like it. I’m enough of a stereotype as is. She’s always making fun of my clothes.” 

Red’s not intending to look, but he does; Teddy’s jeans are tight, making his legs look longer. He’s always liked long legs. Long legs, and a nice face. But he thinks Crazy Bitch has a point. No straight guy wears jeans like that. Not that Red’s complaining. 

“You don’t always do what she says?” He means it like a joke, but Teddy makes a face, for just a second.

“I should, usually, ‘cause she’s usually right,” Teddy says, but then he catches his tongue in his teeth, and Red sees the silver bar through it, before it disappears. “But sometimes she’s wrong.” He catches Red’s look. “I always wanted piercings, and after I moved here, I decided to get some. You should have seen her face when she finally noticed it.”

“Cops allowed to have that?” Red asks. 

“You going to tell on me?” He smiles at Red, then over the balcony.

Red chooses the moment, steps forward, leans in, and kisses Teddy.

But Teddy steps back from him right away. “What?” he asks, staring at Red.

Oh _shit_. 

Red had just sort of assumed. Teddy is gay, and Red had just -

“Sorry,” he says, trying to put some respectful space between them, but Teddy stops him, grabbing him by the shoulders. 

“No!” Teddy says. “No, no, not a bad ‘what’, but...was this...were you asking me out, tonight? Was this a date?” Red stares at him, confused. He’d invited Teddy here, asked for his number. He’s never actually bothered to ask anyone out on a real date before, but he thinks he did it right. This is usually how Vas used to do it.

“Yeah,” he manages. 

“I’m sorry,” Teddy says, but he’s rubbing Red’s shoulders a little, and Red is really confused. “I didn’t realize.” Well, that puts Red in his place, but Teddy’s _still_ got his hands on Red. He’s getting some serious mixed signals, here. “I just thought you were being nice.” 

Red shakes his head, because he doesn’t know what to say.

But then Teddy cups his face and asks, “Could we try that again?” soft and nervous, and yeah, Red wants to try it again. 

They try it again.


	4. Chapter 4

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” He looks up at Emma, who’s got her chin resting in her hand, and looking annoyed. “What’s so fascinating on your phone?”

“Nothing,” Teddy demurs, and blacks the screen. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I was asking you how that case with the tractor was going. You know, showing an interest in your life? Which is more than I’m getting out of you, right now.” She sits up, and takes a sip of her drink. “You going to answer me?”

He has to straighten it out in his head first, but he manages. “Well, at first Kayden Reese said he was going to file charges, but then Latoya Harrison, the nurse? I guess she talked to him, and convinced him that filing charges against a grandmother and beloved member of the community wasn’t going to make him look good to the rest of the neighborhood. Whatever she said, he declined to file, so that’s that on the fight.”

“What about the tractor?”

Teddy groans, settling back in his chair, his knee against the table. “Whatever she said worked a little too well. Turns out Kayden Reese is one of those trust-fund baby hipsters, and now that he’s taken up Ms. Harrison’s side, he’s got his mother representing her, _pro bono_. Apparently she’s very proud Kayden is fighting for a good cause.”

“Who’s his mother?” 

“Georgiana Reese,” Teddy tells her, and Emma stares. 

“ _The_ Georgiana Reese?” she demands. 

Teddy nods. “One and the same. She’s already been down to the precinct.” He can’t understand his luck. Why can’t he ever get acquainted with a woman that doesn’t scare him down to the marrow? 

“Jonah Smith is _fucked_ ,” Emma says, laughing. “That woman haunts defense lawyers’ nightmares!” 

He nods. He’s only heard of Georgiana Reese in passing before, but in person, the woman is the definition of a shark. She hadn’t been cruel, or even mean, but Teddy suspects that’s because Sam had told Teddy and Hernandez to give her whatever she wanted with no argument. Teddy had been grateful, because there had been that _something_ to the woman’s presence that had told Teddy arguing with her would not end well. 

“She’s not just making a case for compensation, either,” Teddy says. “The community garden has been trying to get some kind of...protected status? With the city? And expand their property lines. There’s a couple of abandoned buildings that are going to be torn down, and now she’s launching a lawsuit to have the land they sit on to be added to the garden, and something about greenhouses and a co-op?” Teddy can’t pretend he has any argument against her efforts, but he still can’t believe all of this spun out of a petty argument between a bunch of hippies.

“This is never going away, is it?” she asks. 

Teddy shakes his head. “No, but thankfully I’m not going to be involved much longer.” As soon as everything is settled with the compensation for the tractor, Teddy can go back to arresting people for bar fights. 

His phone dings, and he grabs it, checking. Red has sent him another picture, this one of what looks like a Jeep. Or what was maybe once a Jeep. The caption says, _the fuck am I supposed to do with this_. 

_Could label it as an art piece_ he suggests. 

_Baton Rouge is Full of Fucking Idiots_

_You have to date it and name the medium, too._

“Who the hell are you texting so much?” Emma demands, trying to grab his phone. 

“No one, just some people from work,” he lies. Badly. 

Emma stares at him. “Did you actually just try and lie to me?” 

“No,” he attempts, but he’s got an awful poker face, especially when it comes to Emma. “Maybe. A little.” 

“Tell me,” she says. 

Teddy sets his phone aside again, out of her reach. “I...met someone.” He’s not stupid enough to tell her just who it is. Emma’s more fond of Goody than she wants to admit, but she still doesn’t much like the others, and she still calls Red ‘the serial killer’. And he’s not good at explaining personal things, never has been. He doesn’t know how to tell her, that Red isn’t at all like what he seems. 

That Red is actually sweet, that he’s kind. That after the very stupid misunderstanding at the club, he’d taken Teddy to the cafe down the street, bought them both some tres leche cake and a pitcher of sangria. That he listened. Asked questions. Made Teddy laugh. Kissed him in the corner table, kissed his neck, let Teddy touch the tattoos on his arms.

He’d liked Teddy’s tongue piercing, liked Teddy’s explanation, even if Teddy hadn’t given him quite the whole story in turn. He had wanted to reclaim his own body, he’d said, but left it vague. Too much for a first date, he thinks. 

Even if it had been a date he didn’t know he’d been asked on. 

Sometimes, he even manages to surprise himself with how dense he can be. It’s just that guys like Red have never even looked at Teddy twice in the past, and that was if they even noticed his existence in the first place. 

“What’s his name?” 

He’s going to have to tell her eventually, if this actually goes anywhere, but not right this minute. “It was just one date. I don’t even know if we’re going to go out again.” His phone chooses to betray him right then, and Emma gives him a look. 

“He seems to think there’s going to be a second date,” she points out. When his phone goes off again, she leans down so he’s forced to meet her eyes. “Teddy? You want a second date, right? This isn’t…” 

“Please don’t,” he cuts her off. “And, no, it’s not like that. He’s just...really not like anyone I’ve ever been out with before. I’m not sure where it’s going, and I don’t want to jinx it either.” And telling her is definitely going to jinx it, this early on. He wants to make sure this isn’t just a fluke before he has to endure her worrying. “But he’s nice. And I had a good time.” Now he gets to give her a look. “For once.”

“Hey, I threw _lawyers_ at you. Successful lawyers with 401ks and BMWs who were perfectly capable of keeping you a kept man,” she points out, smacking him in the arm. “Played your cards right, you could quit being a damned cop and be a photographer full time.”

“Emma, Matthew is a cop.” 

“And you two are lucky I love you both enough to overlook that little fact,” she shoots back. “I think Sam Chisolm might be the only respectable Captain in all of Baton Rouge. You do not want to see what the rest of the precincts try to pass off as evidence.” 

She’s not wrong, and even back in Austin, his old Captain had sometimes implied things that had made Teddy uncomfortable, not to mention how his fellow officers behaved. They’d kept it to a minimum around him, but he had started to realize, ever since what happened, it hadn’t been out of respect, just fear of him pressing a grievance. Sam Chisolm didn’t put up with that kind of thing, though. Hernandez had told him that her first partner, years ago, had called her a name to her face, one Teddy doesn’t even want to repeat in his own head, but instead of brushing it under the rug, Sam Chisolm had ended that officer’s career. 

“Anything interesting going on in your neck of the woods?” he asks, feeling bad about being distracted now. 

“Just the usual,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Want to go to a movie?” 

“It’s Sunday,” he reminds her. And it’s already after eleven. Going to the movies after eleven on a Sunday is just asking to be trapped in a theater full of parents and their overdressed and uncomfortable children. He thinks it over, and then suggests, “What about the community center? The one you said was doing that Halloween thing?”

“You want to go?” He’s embarrassed that she sounds so enthusiastic, even though he knows why. It’s been a long time since he wanted to do anything he actually enjoyed, and even after moving here, there’s still that twist in the pit of his stomach telling him he’s going to make trouble for himself.

There’s no one here who cares if he goes, though. No one waiting back at the house, maybe with a drink, maybe without. Without the drink was always worse. 

While Emma gets ready, he texts Red. Apparently he doesn’t usually work weekends, but he’s covering a shift for someone, and he’s been bored. Teddy has been his primary entertainment, but he doesn’t want to keep ignoring Emma. 

_That the place you were thinking of submitting to?_

Teddy’s always been a lightweight, despite his height, and the drink he’d had at the club, plus the sangria had been enough to get him running his mouth more than usual. Red hadn’t made fun of it though. He hasn’t made fun of anything about Teddy, not really, not in a mean way. 

_Yeah_. 

_Cool. Tell me how it goes._

And that’s it, until they’re halfway there and he gets another picture. This time though, the text reads, _hey guy red is fckng textng all day look_. It’s a whiteboard that reads _It has been (0) days since Red pissed off a customer_. It makes Teddy laugh, but he texts back, _He’s going to kill you_. 

They’re at the community center by the time Teddy finally gets another text. _She’s the only one who knows how to process the insurance shit._

The community center is actually in pretty good shape, considering the neighborhood. There’s a very nice bronze plaque in the entryway that explains it though; some football player from the Baltimore Ravens had apparently grown up in the neighborhood, and had paid for the renovations. He was probably still footing the bill for half the programs, if Teddy had to guess, considering that while he didn’t know much about football, he did know the guy was still playing. He hated that he was cynical enough to wonder if the guy was being truly altruistic, or was making sure he had a worthy charity to back himself up if he got caught doing something unsavory. 

It’s not like the reason matters, anyway. Teddy had practically grown up in places like this, had relied on them for pretty much everything. The community centers he’d gone to as a kid hadn’t only taught him photography; places like this had offered free classes that had taught him how to cook, how to live on a budget, even how to get through his college applications. The smell of it takes him back, and even the sound of sneakers and the thump of a ball on the floor when they pass the gym are comforting in their familiarity. 

The reason doesn’t matter. Not if it means kids and the rest of the community have somewhere safe to go that can provide help.

Emma leads them down to an atrium at the end of a hall of classrooms, and waves big. “Rashawn!” 

The woman she’s calling smiles, and waves, but holds up her clipboard, and goes back to talking to the man beside her. While the both of them wait for her to finish up, they walk around the atrium. There’s a lot of pottery and paintings, but not a lot of photography, Teddy notices. 

Eventually, Rashawn finishes up and joins them, her and Emma hugging. “Rashawn, this my friend, Teddy? The photographer?” 

“Amateur,” he deflects. 

“From the portfolio Emma showed me, you’re a damn good amateur,” Rashawn says, while shaking his hand. Teddy looks at Emma, but she just makes a face at him. “Emma here says you can do print and digital?”

“Learned back at my own community center, back in the day,” he admits. He still enjoys both, even if digital is a bit easier. “Emma said you were looking for entries?”

“Looking for volunteers, too,” she says. “We had a woman before, but she retired two years ago, and the older kids only know so much. Everyone’s been missing the program something bad. When Emma mentioned you, I was hoping she could swing you our way.” 

Teddy shrugs. “Maybe.” The thing is, he really does love photography, but it’s not like he knows the particulars over the amateur level. Still, he would like getting to share what he did know. Give some kids like him a chance at a hobby, or maybe even a passion. “Not sure I’d be any good at teaching.” 

“I think you’d be better than you think,” Rashawn says. Emma has wandered off to look at some pottery, and Teddy sees how Rashawn notices before she asks, “Emma hinted you were in the system?”

“From when I was eight until I aged out,” he admits. He doesn’t like thinking about it. There are a lot of nights he still jerks awake to the feeling of being thrown forward and then back, and the crowbar against his door, car horns blaring -

_“Keep your eyes shut, baby, keep them shut, the ambulance is almost here,”_

Rashawn nods. “Went in when I was thirteen, myself. My grandmother got dementia, couldn’t take care of me anymore.” She hitches her chin, and says, “I depended on places like this, too. Not like the system was going to pay for me to get my hair done, but the center near my foster home had the students from the beauty school volunteering every week. Got that program set up here, too.”

He remembers that; not knowing if he was going to have to keep letting his hair grow, and being even more of a target, or getting lucky and having some barber volunteer their time at the center. “That’s good of you,” he says. 

“Trust me, I’ve been working my ass off to get trades volunteering in here. Emma’s been a big help. Lot of unions are willing to take what they can get, and they like getting to the kids young.”

“Get them before they learn bad habits, and teach them the union is for their own good,” Teddy says. “And they walk out of an apprenticeship with a good job, and not six figures in debt. Not that I’d of been good for any of that, but I wish someone had told me that back when I was sixteen.”

“You and me both,” Rashawn agrees. “I keep thinking, I’m thirty-seven and if I’d gotten an apprenticeship, I’d probably own my home by now. And I wouldn’t have to deal with the _donors_.” She rolls her eyes. “I really would like you to think about it, you know. We would appreciate it.” 

He knows she means it. And it might be good for him, too. He hasn’t been lonely here in Baton Rouge, not exactly, but he has been sort of restless. And this way, he would have access to a dark room again. Digital photography is fine, but he does like to go back and forth. 

“Let me see where I have free time,” he offers. Offhand, he wonders if Red would be interested in doing something like this. “I’m a police officer, and my hours are a little strange sometimes.” 

“Word from the wise?” Rashawn offers. “Maybe leave that part out if anyone asks.” He nods, agreeing. He hadn’t been too fond of the police himself back when he was in the system. Most of the ones who had come to the community centers had been alright, usually just wanting to use the basketball court, but there had always been more than one bully in the group. 

Emma rejoins them, this time with a flyer in hand that she shows Teddy. It’s advertising the showing she was talking about. “This city is really into Halloween, isn’t it?” he asks. 

“You should see New Orleans,” Rashawn counters. “Made the mistake of going to a convention down there once in the last week of October, and regretted every second. I have never seen so many drunk, half-naked people, and not one of them had an ounce of the good sense and shame God gave them.” 

“You’ve never been to a Pride event, have you?” Teddy asks. 

Rashawn grins at him. “Thought I had you pegged right, but I didn’t want to be rude. We have a lot of LGBTQA kids here, so I got a group started for them, so they’d have a support network. We’re always looking for adults to help out. I like to think I’m pretty well-informed, but some of those kids have questions I don’t even know the right end of.” 

He can relate. He’d always known he was different, and so had everyone else, but foster care in Texas had not been the greatest place to get his own questions answered. It wasn’t until he’d gone to college he’d been able to join a GSA with people who could actually _answer_ those questions. There hadn’t been a chance of him ever getting so much as a date in high school, so it wasn’t like he’d missed out, but he’d still have liked to at least know the basics.

“I’ll think about it,” he says. He’s not sure how much help he would be, considering some of the kids in question have probably already had more partners than him, but he’d of at least liked a sympathetic ear when he was their age. “How long are you accepting entries for this?” he asks, holding up the flyer. 

“We want to get everything set up by the 28th, so the 27th at the latest.” That’s not a lot of time, but Teddy actually already has some pictures that might be worth a shot. He’s been messing with the one he took at Emma’s place, and he’s been pretty happy with it so far. “Would you like a tour while I’ve got you here, or would you rather look around on your own?” 

Emma looks up at him, and he nods. “Tour might be nice,” he says.

The place is being run pretty well, from what Teddy sees on the tour. Rashawn shows them the classrooms, most of them occupied by ESL classes of varying languages and levels, and even a class in the middle of a lesson about how to properly file taxes. There’s a fully-functioning kitchen, staffed by the higher-up students from the local culinary school, prepping for their next class, one of the students writing up what looks to be both instructions and nutritional information on the whiteboard. The FFA has a classroom all their own too, that opens up to a courtyard and even has a connecting greenhouse. The daycare looks to be mostly empty, which makes sense, it being Sunday, but it’s clean and someone’s painted murals on almost all the walls except for one, that one painted with chalkboard paint, and covered with scrawls from the kids who are probably usually here. 

“How much is the daycare?” he asks. 

“Free, for the most part,” Rashawn tells him. “We made a deal with the community college. They can use the daycare as their off-site for training the students majoring in early childcare development and teaching, as long as all the students pass their background checks and have their safety certifications, and the instructors are always present. People pay what they can. It’s a lot of juggling, let me tell you, but we make it work. We have to make it work.” 

Emma nods. “My grandmother used to run a daycare out of our house for the neighborhood. Don’t think I ever got to sleep past seven until I got to college.” 

“I don’t remember getting to sleep past seven much at college,” Teddy points out. Emma is a morning person, and she’d decided Teddy was too. He still can’t sleep late. She’d ruined it for him by sophomore year. 

“Quit whining,” she says now. “You should be thanking me for getting you away from that stoner you were stuck with.” It’s a fair point. Michael had spent their entire freshman year in a perpetual daze, but somehow, his grades had been better than Teddy’s. “Anything else?” she asks Rashawn. 

“Just the gym and the art rooms, but those are about to fill up. Church is fixing to let out. Means I’ve got to head off, too. I coach the softball league.” 

There’s a bar down the street, and since both he and Emma figure that’s one place church-going types won’t go on Sunday, they get lunch there. It’s mostly empty, so they get a booth instead of sitting at the bar. 

“Places like that were important to you, when you were growing up, right?” she asks, while they share some duck-fat fries, waiting for their actual food. 

“Taught me how to adult,” Teddy acknowledges. “Most of my foster parents didn’t really want anything to do with me, long as I kept my head down.” He knows he had gotten relatively lucky. None of the homes he had been put in had been particularly bad. The worst one had actually been his longest placement, and why he’d ended up in the group home in the end. Turned out his foster parents had been getting ADHD medication prescriptions in Teddy and the other kids’ names, and selling them. The social workers had been less than pleased, but by then, Teddy had been a teenager, and placing him had proven too difficult, so to the group home he had gone. “Places like that were safe for kids like me. Somewhere we could go where the adults actually gave a damn about us. Whoever that football player is, he’s done a damn good deed, putting as much money as must have into this one.” 

“Considering how much he probably makes in a damn month endorsing Nike and those protein shakes, not to mention his contract, he can afford it,” Emma says, rolling her eyes. “He’s one of Matthew’s favorites.” 

“Thought he played for the Ravens?” He might not know a whole lot about football, but he knows Matthew is a Cowboys fan. 

Emma shrugs. “Why are you asking me like I know the first thing about football? I don’t know how that man’s mind works once we cross over into male territory.” 

“I’m a man,” Teddy reminds her, and gets a fry thrown at him. “I’m going to submit some work. I don’t know about the teaching, not just yet, but I like the idea.”

“You used to volunteer at the synagogue,” she reminds him, dunking another fry in the malt vinegar. They’d been served with five different dip options, but Emma’s always loved malt vinegar only for reasons Teddy doesn’t understand. “Thought about finding one around here? You know Matthew and me would go with you.” 

She means well, but he shakes his head. “Don’t think I’m ready for that just yet.” He’s not particularly religious, but he’d enjoyed reconnecting with his parents’ faith once he got to college, and started attending again.

That had been one of the first things Joseph had started putting Teddy down about. He’d never gone with Teddy, not once. Instead, he’d sneered about the whole thing. The final straw had been when Teddy had wanted him to go to the Purim celebration, and Joseph had mocked it, and then -

Teddy rubs his shoulder. Phantom ache. 

He’d stopped going to the synagogue after that. 

When Emma reaches across the table and takes his hand, she’s making a face. Teddy squeezes her hand, then lets go, trying to smile. “No, I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, before she can ask. 

“I know.” But then she eyes him. “Want to talk about who’s been blowing up your phone?” 

“ _No_ ,” he insists. 

“Oh, come on, give me something,” she demands. “Is he tall? Short?”

It’s harmless enough that Teddy says, “Same height as me, maybe a little taller.” She’s clearly waiting for more, so he gives in before she starts pushing and he cracks. “We went to a club. Saw a band. Went to a cafe after. It was real casual.” 

She waves a hand, gesturing, _go on_. 

“Emma, please,” he deflects. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up, alright?” She rolls her eyes at him, but she doesn’t keep it up. “You and Matthew talk any more about that thing?” It’s a good distraction, and he genuinely wants to know anyway.

“We just ended up back where we always do.” Their food finally shows up, and they both thank the server, Emma waiting until they’re gone before continuing. “We’re living in a one bedroom, we’ve both got more work than we know what to do with, plus the cost of childcare, not to mention the healthcare I’d need. Do you know how much giving birth in a hospital costs? It’s a lot, and neither of us are covered for it, not completely. Then there’s maternity leave...I only get eight weeks, and Matthew doesn’t get paternity leave.” That’s all pretty reasonable, but Teddy still hates how sad she looks when she says, “It’s just not viable right now.” 

So he says, “We could get a house in the suburbs. Make me your houseboy-slash-nanny.” She kicks him under the table, but she brightens up.

“That honestly doesn’t even sound like that bad a plan,” she says. “Unfortunately for you, I know you want a husband and a kid and a home of your own.” 

His face gets hot, so he picks at his wings. “Don’t use things I said when I was drunk against me, or you’re in for a world of payback.” He _does_ want those things. It had been one of the first things he could remember wanting with all his heart, a home of his own. Later on, the idea of someone to share it with got added in. It had been after he became a police officer, and started volunteering with the schools, that started the idea of maybe someone else in that home too, a little one of his own to brag about and love. “Might be time to give that up. What do I know about parenting?” 

“Don’t say that,” Emma says, stealing one of his wings, but offering him one of her sliders in turn. “I think you’d make a great father, Teddy. Just like you’re going to be a great uncle, and godfather.” 

“I told you, my kind doesn’t do that whole godparent thing.” 

“It’s so cute how you think I’m asking instead of telling you.” 

After Emma drops him off at his place, he starts getting his gear together. It’s a nice afternoon, and maybe he’ll be able to get some good shots.

His phone goes off right as he’s finishing up. 

_I’m off. Want to do something?_

_Was actually thinking of heading out to take some pictures for that thing at the center._

He doesn’t expect the text he gets back. _Want company? I know a place_

It throws him off, but maybe this is a good way for him to get his bearings with Red a bit better. See if this really was something. _Sure_

Red picks him up about a half-hour later, his window rolled down, a lit cigarette in hand. He puts it out when Teddy gets in, flicking it into the street. “You shouldn’t do that,” Teddy says, and Red raises an eyebrow at him. “They end up getting into the storm drains, and fish eat them. And birds.” Red keeps looking at him. “It’s bad for them.” He feels stupid, after a second.

But then Red shrugs, and says, “Didn’t know that.” 

“Emma dragged me to an environmental lecture back in college. It was a real long three hours.” Not that he hadn’t learned some things, but that hadn’t made it any less boring by the end. “Did you do any college, when you were in the Marines?” 

“Not my thing.” 

“Not a fan of school?” 

It takes a minute for Red to answer, but they’ve come up to a traffic light, and since this is Baton Rouge, he lets Red concentrate on getting them through it in one piece. “Wasn’t a fan of the other people,” he finally says. 

He can understand that. “Me neither. Bad enough I was in a group home, I had to be Jewish too. And I think everyone knew I was gay before I did. Bet you can guess how much fun that combination was, living in Texas.” 

“Why’d you stay?” 

“Most of the aid I got was only available if I went to an in-state school,” Teddy explains. “Even then, like I said, I’m still in more debt than I’d like to be. But I wouldn’t trade it either. College was the first place I really got a chance to be myself without worrying too much about it.” Something occurs to him, so he asks, “Suppose you didn’t get to do that. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in effect when you signed up.” 

“Didn’t mean much. Not then. Small Louisiana town, no one’s doing much talking. Not back then. Not now either.” He flicks his turn signal up and pulls down a street Teddy doesn’t recognize, full of older, smaller houses, practically squashed together, the steeple of a church getting closer. The sidewalks are cracked, lifting up in places from the roots of the trees planted too close to them, and there’s more than one car parked on the street that he doubts starts anymore. “Figured it wouldn’t matter, long as I kept it quiet.” 

The church is abandoned, Teddy realizes, when Red pulls into the old gravel parking lot. There’s smoke stains up the sides, and the other side of the steeple is caved in. “What is this?” he asks Red. 

“It’s old. Got struck by lightning awhile back. They built a new one up the street.” He hitches his chin towards where it must be. “One of those mega-churches.” 

“Never got the point of those,” Teddy confesses, hoping he’s not offending Red. 

He definitely doesn’t, because Red scowls. “My dad hates those places.” He starts walking, so Teddy follows, his camera bag over his shoulder. 

There’s a little playground behind the church, right beside a tiny, overcrowded graveyard, the stones even more shoved together than the houses on the block, some of them leaning against one another, and more than one broken. They’re all mostly covered with moss, what little green there is between the stones overrun with weeds. Worse, the kudzu and wisteria seem to be taking over different corners of the place, bound to meet in the middle eventually, and choke the whole place entirely.

“Creepy enough for you?” 

“Sad,” Teddy confesses. “When was the last time someone was even buried here?” 

“Recent I ever saw was ten years ago, and she was added on. Got her ashes put in with her husband’s, I guess.” He knocks his fist against one that sort of looks like a cabinet, but made of stone, and sealed shut. There’s a faux-wicker look to the front, and Teddy can just see two stone urns inside, barely visible in the fading light.

It’s eerie, and it definitely fits what the community center was asking for, but Teddy turns back to Red. “How’d you find this place?”

“We used to meet our dealer here.”

It shouldn’t, but it makes Teddy laugh. “Why would you tell me that?” 

He’s not expecting it, but he goes along when Red gets a hand on his waist and pulls him close. “You going to bust me?” 

“Probably not,” he admits. When Red kisses him, he cups Red’s jaw, trying not to smile too much, but it’s still funny. “You know, I could show you like, a dozen horror movies that start off with some idiots meeting in a graveyard. They usually die in the first five minutes.” Red makes a noise that tells Teddy just what he thinks about that, and kisses him again. “None of you are the Final Girl, so you all die. Horribly.”

“Final Girl?” Red lets him go when Teddy steps back from him, adjusting his camera. 

“You know, the young, pretty white girl? Not the slutty one. The only one who makes it to the end.” He looks up to get a read on Red’s reaction, but he’s just shaking his head and getting his pack out, leaning against one of the poles of the old swing set. 

Carefully, he raises his camera, asking. Red hitches a shoulder, and looks away, concentrating on lighting his cigarette. He has a good profile, and the composition is just right, with the light and the background, so he takes another, before turning back to the graveyard, not wanting to push Red’s comfort. He gets the feeling Red isn’t one for pictures. 

Picking his way through the graveyard, he reads the dates before he takes any pictures, keeping himself to the ones older than fifty years, at least. There’s plenty of them, and he bets the ones covered in the kudzu date back much, much further, but when he tries to move some of it, he sees the vines have sunk roots into the stones already. 

It’s creepy, Red is right, but it really is sad too. He doesn’t take any pictures of the church, in the end. It feels oddly intrusive of something he’s not a part of, but the remains of the playground make for what might be some good shots in the dying light. 

Red is comfortable company, not really asking any questions, but he doesn’t look impatient either. He watches Teddy, mostly, his hands in his pockets after he finishes his cigarette, but sometimes Teddy catches him looking out at the neighborhood instead. 

When he finishes up, Red pushes off from the swingset, coming back over to him. “Anything good?” 

“Hard to tell until I’m looking them over later,” Teddy says. “Lots of times, you think you’ve got something really good, and then when you take a second look, not so much.” That’s not really the point with him, anyway, but it’s hard to explain. “Why’d you want to come with me today?” 

“Wanted to see you,” Red says.

It’s such a _line_ , or it should be. It just doesn’t really sound like one this time, not when Red says it. 

Or maybe Teddy’s still just an easy mark. 

“You got work tomorrow?” Red asks him, pulling down the tail of the truck and boosting himself up to sit on it. 

Teddy does too, looking at the display on his camera once he’s up. “No. Sam’s trying to get everything organized for Halloween night, and since me and Hernandez are going to be on patrol, he’s trying to give us and the rest of the sacrifices as much time off as he can manage, while everyone else manages the set-up.” He huffs, not looking forward to it. “You?” Red shakes his head, and Teddy figures that working today must have had a trade-off. “Did you really just want to see me?” 

“Wanted to see you,” he says again.“ And my roommates don’t work weekends. Didn’t feel like dealing with them.” He’s looking at Teddy, he can see it in his peripheral, but he keeps his own eyes on his camera. “Can you show me some?”

There’s no harm in it, he figures. Even if most of them aren’t very good, and they probably aren’t, considering how out of practice he still is, he doesn’t think Red will make fun of them. So Teddy puts the camera between them, and goes through a few of them. They’re mostly repetitive shots, Teddy trying to get better lighting, or a better angle. But Red stops on one of the ones of himself, frowning down at it. “If you don’t like it, I’ll delete it,” Teddy offers. He usually ends up deleting all the ones of Emma and Matthew anyway. 

Red shakes his head. “Just weird.” 

“What, seeing a picture of yourself?” It’s a decent picture, actually. Not for the showing, but a good picture on its own. “Matthew likes to steal my camera sometimes, take pictures of me and Emma. Seen myself so many times, guess I don’t even think about it anymore. And when I was learning, the instructor at the center used to have us do like, a thousand self-portraits.” He catches Red’s raised eyebrows. “Her reasoning was that the only way we’d be able to ‘truly capture’ other subjects was if we could capture our own, ‘true selves’.” 

The face Red is making says exactly what he must think about that idea. 

“All they told me was that I was a really awkward-looking teenager,” Teddy confesses. He had never really liked those photos of himself, how he could never make himself relax. “She used to look at them and go on and on about how they were a reflection of my _inner struggle_.” 

“What was she in real life, a therapist?” 

“Spiritual adviser.” At least, that’s all Teddy remembers her mentioning, but for the life of him, he can’t think of how she made a living off of it. “She was an interesting woman, even if she did get on my nerves a little.” She’d meant well, but by then, Teddy had gone so long without anyone showing much interest in him, hers had felt suffocating. And while he had been kind of bullied, and isolated, he still thought she was projecting a lot of that torment she claimed to see in him.

Red hands the camera back to him, and Teddy carefully packs it away, setting the bag by his hip. 

Around them, Teddy hears the neighborhood coming alive. Cars pulling up, people heading towards different houses, music starting up. Sunday dinners are always a thing in neighborhoods like this, neighborhoods like his foster homes were in. It hadn’t been something Teddy could connect to, always an outsider, no matter how many times whatever foster parents he was currently with dragged him to church. 

“We should go,” Red says, getting down. “People around here don’t like strangers hanging around.” 

“Yeah, how dare they assume you’re some degenerate looking to score in their neighborhood?” Teddy asks, following him down, and getting a grin from Red before he locks the tail back in place and heads to the driver’s side. 

In the truck, Red pulls his pack out of his back pocket, sitting it in the cupholder with a Bic lighter. He taps the steering wheel after, looking like he’s thinking seriously about what he’s about to say next, so Teddy is a little confused when all he says is, “I don’t hang around people who don’t smoke.” 

Oh. Alright, he can see that point, if Red’s making the one Teddy thinks he is. Keeping this from Emma was the right idea, then. “Okay?”

“I do it when I’m bored. It’s just something to do with my hands.” He has an oddly direct way of speaking at times, Teddy notices, like he’s really mulled his words over, even when it’s as small as this. Maybe that’s why everything he says tends to sound sincere. “If it bothers you, I don’t need to do it.” 

_Oh_. That’s...not where he thought this was going.

“I’ve been around smokers my whole life,” Teddy says. He actually can’t think of a single foster parent who didn’t smoke. 

“That’s not really an answer.” 

He’s heard that before, that exact wording, but maybe it’s some combination of the distance and the time, and even the way Red speaks, that keeps him from answering how he would have, if this was Austin, and a different car, and a different person asking him. “I don’t like being in an enclosed space with it, is all, and I, uh,” he pauses, but when Red just waits, eyebrows raised, he admits, “and I hate cigars. Can’t stand the smell of them.” 

“People still smoke those?” It doesn’t really need an answer, and Red starts the truck right after he says it anyway, so Teddy keeps quiet, sitting back in the seat. 

It’s not like he’s been on many dates, not really. Not before...well, not before. But even he knows this one is kind of weird. Sweet, and considerate, but weird. So he’s not sure what comes next. 

“Did you really used to meet your dealer there?” 

Red shakes his head. “I’m not a snitch.” 

“And my captain ain’t all that interested in busting the kind of low-level dealer that hangs out in graveyards,” Teddy points out. Lord knows that if they started going after every single one in this city, none of them would ever get to go home. “The traffic tickets keep us plenty busy, trust me.” He’d thought Austin was bad, with all the students, but he’s not entirely convinced Baton Rouge even requires people to take a test to get a license, the amount of stupid shit he’s seen here. “You’re kind of an anomaly.” When Red spares him a look, Teddy says, “I don’t think you’ve gone more than five miles over the speed limit.” 

That’s always been something of a trigger for him, no matter how much therapy social services stuck him in, something easily used against him. 

The truck slows, and Teddy sees the red light out of the corner of his eye, the cars in front of them already stopped. Red doesn’t even come close to them. “Back when I was learning how to fix cars, my dad used to take me around the wrecked ones, show me the damage. Tell me how cars are made of metal. Would ask me what I thought happened to the people.” The light turns, and the cars in front of them move. “People are softer than cars.” 

“They are,” Teddy says quietly. 

He sees the moment Red remembers what Teddy had told him about his own parents. “Didn’t mean to bring that up,” Red replies. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” And it is. Twenty years is a long time to get past something. “I just meant that I like how you drive.” Red almost laughs, so Teddy asks, “What?” 

“Might be the first person who’s ever said that.” When he considers Red’s bandmates, that makes sense. 

Teddy’s phone buzzes, and when he checks, he huffs. 

“Problem?”

Not really, or not what most people would consider a problem. He doesn’t dislike his housemates here in Baton Rouge, and they’ve definitely made an effort to be good to him since he got here. “My housemates, they’ve shared the house for a couple of years now. They’re all in the precinct too, and they’re close.” The guy who had lived in Teddy’s room before him, Chris, had actually only moved out because he got engaged. “And they are all into sports. Like, watching the games, playing those fantasy things, video games, having everyone over, and that’s fine, I get it. And they try to include me, which honestly, is a nice change from before.”

It had never been an obvious exclusion, back in Austin, and no one had ever said anything in particular. Not to his face, at least. That hadn’t started until after the break-up. 

It honestly has been better here. And he does like being invited to things.

“Just gets a bit much, is all.” 

“Could come back to mine,” Red offers. 

“What about your roommates?” 

“They’ll live.” 

Red doesn’t live far from Teddy, it turns out, but the building is noticeably newer, and therefore nicer, than the house. He follows Red through the open hallway to a ground-floor unit in the back of the building, passing two neighbors sitting on plastic lawn chairs, drinking beer and sharing what Teddy chooses to believe is just a hand-rolled cigarette. He’s not on-duty, and he doubts either of them would care even if he was in uniform. 

The welcome mat in front of Red’s door does stop him though. 

_Come back with a warrant_ , it reads. 

“Really?” he asks. 

“Faraday thought it was funny,” Red says, unlocking the door. Inside, something moves toward them, and Red stomps his foot on the ground, scaring it back. It’s a cat, Teddy realizes, a big orange tomcat that hisses at Red before taking off back into the apartment. 

“You have a cat?” Teddy follows him in, shutting the heavy door firmly behind him. 

“Not mine,” he says, hanging his jacket on a hook by the door. “Come on.” 

His bedroom is the only one on the right side of the place, and it’s considerably neater than the common areas. Neater than his own bedroom for sure. Red’s sitting on the bed and taking his boots off, so Teddy takes his own shoes off, placing them by the door. 

There’s a red and blue flag hanging on the wall by the window; _Comanche Nation_. 

“You’re Comanche?” he asks, hoping that’s not a weird thing to ask. 

Red nods. “You?”

“I told you, I’m Jewish,” Teddy answers, but he knows that’s not what Red means. “Other than that, I don’t really know. I remember my mom could speak German, but that’s about all I got. Oh, and Quinn is an Irish last name.” Not that that means much. “Were you really in the Marines?” He can’t see it, even when he tries. “Do you have any pictures?”

“Dresser,” Red says, so Teddy turns, and sees there’s a picture stuck in the frame of the mirror over it. 

There’s three people in the picture; Red, in a uniform, with his hair shaved close and even, is in the middle. On one side is an older man with a full beard, Red’s dad, Teddy guesses, and on the other is one of his bandmates. Vasquez, Teddy remembers. “You’ve known Vasquez a long time, then?” He had said Vasquez had taught him to play guitar. 

“He’s my brother,” Red says. “Adopted. He’d already been with my dad for a few years when I got placed.” 

“What was that like?” Secretly, Teddy had always kind of fantasized about having siblings back when he was still in the system. If he couldn’t have parents, or a home, it would have been nice to not be alone in it all. “He’s older than you, right?”

“By about five years.” He sits back on his elbows on the bed. “I was taller for awhile.” It’s such a weird thing to say, Teddy turns to stare at him. “It really pissed him off.” 

Now he gets it. “You really are a little brother,” he says, sitting down on the bed too now. “My partner, Hernandez, all her younger siblings are taller than her. Drives her crazy. Hell, first day she met me, she told me if I made a short joke, she’d tase me.” He nods at Red’s raised eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure she was serious.” 

“Served with some women like that. Byrd kicked me in the shins a couple of times. Broke the skin once.” 

He doesn’t know Red very well yet, but he thinks he knows enough to ask, “And how would she tell that story?”

Teddy does know he likes it when Red sits up and leans over to kiss him. “Was holding some of her gear over her head,” he admits to Teddy. “Short people get mad really easily.” 

“I think it’s because they have less room to store it,” Teddy jokes. “‘Course, I’m not dumb enough to say that out loud to any of them.” 

It’s almost too good, kissing Red. Teddy never got to do anything like this when everyone else was in high school, had barely had the chance in college. There’d only ever really been Joseph, and -

And even in the beginning, before it all went bad, he hadn’t kissed Teddy like this.

No, this is good. This is so good. Red’s got a hand on Teddy’s waist now, the other on his arm, and it’s as good as it was after the club. Red is warm, and strong, his hands steady. Teddy wants this, wants to touch Red back, and he can. Everything about him feels strong. 

The hand on Teddy’s waist works its way under his shirt, but it’s slow, careful. Giving him a chance to say _stop_. He doesn’t say stop, though, not yet. 

Red’s thumb catches on one of the hidden piercings, and he pulls back a hair, enough to ask, “Tongue’s not the only piercing?”

“I never said it was,” Teddy says, trying not to fidget. No one but him and the piercer has ever touched them, and it had hurt like all hell when they were done, so it definitely hadn’t felt like this. “It’s just the three.” Which is three more than he’s ever had in his entire life until the day he’d gotten them done. He hadn’t even had his ears pierced. 

Red huffs against Teddy’s neck, his thumb working the piercing again before settling. “So why am I the emo kid?” 

He’d forgotten he’d called Red that. He had just been talking to talk, anxious about being set up on another date and intruding in Red’s space at the same time. “I think you have more tattoos than skin, so you got me beat by a long shot.” Red had a sleeveless shirt on under his hoodie, so Teddy has plenty of them to see. 

Most of them are at least a couple of years old. But the ones on Red’s collarbone, they’re newer, the ink still raised in spots. He jumps a bit when Teddy gets to the center, but doesn’t stop him. 

“Can I ask about these?” 

“There’s not really a story,” Red says, reaching for Teddy’s legs and pulling them over his own. He runs his hand up Teddy’s thigh. “Do I need one?”

Teddy shrugs. “No.” He catches Red’s hand in his. “You wouldn’t have to tell me even if there was one.” He can feel Red’s ring against his fingers. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now he looks. It’s a thick band with some sort of black design etched in, the edges kind of sharp against his own fingers. 

Red looks down at their hands, then sits back on the elbow of his other arm. “Picked it up at a street fair.” 

“I don’t think I’ve been to a street fair since college.” Emma and him had used to go, but since neither of them ever had any money, it’s not like they could do much at them. “There was one near my old place, back in Austin, actually, but I never went.” Red raises his eyebrows, asking, but Teddy doesn’t really know what to say. “Never seemed to find the time, is all.”

Someone else in the apartment, probably one of Red’s roommates, shouts something at the other one, but the door muffles it enough Teddy really can’t tell what’s said. 

“Anyone ever tell you that you can’t lie?” Red asks. 

Damn. “Only every single person I have ever tried to lie to,” he admits. Not exactly a trait that had done him many favors over his life, but it is what it is. “I’m not trying to lie to you, not exactly. Just probably not something you want to listen to, is all.” Thing is, he knows that if they keep on seeing each other, eventually they probably are going to have to get into this. 

So when Red says, “Try me,” he takes it as a sign. And even if Red never talks to him again after this, at least he’ll be able to pinpoint a reason.

“Back in Austin, I’ve got an ex-boyfriend. He didn’t like doing things like that.” Hell, Teddy’s not entirely sure he could name something Joseph McCann actually did like. “And he really didn’t like it when I did anything he didn’t like.” He’s still playing with Red’s ring, looking down at it instead of up at Red. “That ended up being a problem, and that’s why he’s an ex-boyfriend.” 

This time, Red doesn’t say anything, not for a good minute, and it feels like it drags on for a lot longer. 

“Is he why you don’t live in Austin anymore?” 

Teddy twists the ring, and Red lets him, while he tries to explain. “Things just got kind of ugly, there at the end. He works for a private contractor that had close ties with my precinct. So when I ended things, it was just...a lot of trouble. And since Emma and Matthew were out here, it seemed like a good idea. Somewhere new, but where I had friends already.” Since it turned out he sure as hell didn’t have any in his old precinct. “It was awhile ago, in any case.” 

And it’s not important, not anymore. He’s in Baton Rouge, not Austin. He’s in a precinct run by a good man, he’s near Emma and Matthew, and while the house he lives in now might look like one more tropical storm will do it in, it’s his name on the lease. 

And he’s with Red right now.

Red pushes his thumb against Teddy’s mouth. “How do you get away with that thing?” 

It’s a nice change of subject. “You’re only seeing it now because you know it’s there.” 

“Definitely thinking about it.” He proves that when he cups the back of Teddy’s neck and kisses him, his other hand still on Teddy’s thigh. “They do a carnival down the street. For Halloween.” Teddy knows. He’s seen the trucks driving by, and has been able to hear them setting up even at his house. “Want to go?” 

“Do you?” He hasn’t been to a carnival since he was a kid, and he’d love to go, but he can’t see Red liking that kind of thing. 

“We always go,” Red says. “Can be fun.” 

“Alright.” 

That counts as a third date, Teddy reasons later, leaning against the kitchen counter at the house while he waits for his coffee to brew. They make it past that, he’s going to have to insist on them doing something that isn’t Halloween-themed.


End file.
